In an unprecedented move to punish the
vaccine-hesitant, the provincial government of Pakistan's Punjab province
has decided to block the
SIM cards of every citizen who refuses to get vaccinated
against COVID-19.
The
wildly authoritarian decision was reportedly taken at a meeting led by
Provincial health minister Dr. Yasmin Rashid in Lahore on August 5th.
The action was largely in response to the Punjab Primary Health department’s report
that the province has failed to achieve its set target for COVID-19
vaccination.
Reports
indicate that, since the start of the vaccination drive on February 2nd,
approximately 300,000 people have failed to return to receive their second vaccine
dose after receiving their first one. (An official with the Pakistan Ministry
of National Health Services (NHS) said the second dose of the majority of the Wuhan
Flu coronavirus vaccines is administered after an interval of three weeks,
except in the case of the AstraZeneca vaccine, where the second dose is given
after a period of 12 weeks.)
This
immediately caused me to think: “Maybe they died or got very ill after their
first dose and couldn’t-- or did not wish to-- return for an encore.” But
perhaps I am too cynical.
And
then I read that the official added, "We are categorizing such people; there is
a possibility that some of them might have died before getting their second
dose. Another group which has been identified consists of those who contracted
COVID-19 after receiving their first dose and then decided not to get the
second one. Others might have fallen to the negative propaganda and skipped the
vaccination.”
I
am not too cynical. So, some may have died, others may have had adverse
reactions to the jab, and still others may have contracted COVID anyway. Oh,
and some may have, for utterly inexplicable reasons, been affected by the completely
baseless “negative propaganda” and therefore decided to skip the vaccination.
One’s
smart phone is rendered essentially useless and impotent when its SIM card is
blocked/locked. In many cases government is tyrannical and demonic. Useless
would be an improvement. It would be nice if ordinary citizens could
render overreaching governments impotent. Especially in supposedly representative
republics like the United States. Unfortunately, far too many of us in recent
years have declined to truly participate in our participatory democracies.
Soft,
blinded, and anesthetized-- by our vices and devices—we have been content to
just “phone it in.”
Elites
around the world, in and out of government, noticed this. When the China
Virus COVID-19 presented them with a crisis too laden with opportunity to
pass up, they pounced. The rest is history.
And
our freedoms may be, as well.
Welcome
to the new China Syndrome, circa 2021.
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