ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic wreaked medical, social and economic devastation across the world. For developing countries with inadequate healthcare infrastructure and weak economic systems like Pakistan, the challenge was particularly severe. The nation is still in the nascent stages of consolidating democracy and the rule of law and breaking away from its history of post-colonial inspired centralised decision-making and over-reliance on non-democratic ‘quick fixes’. Despite the milder severity of consequences due to COVID-19 compared to its neighbours, Pakistan had to confront its own set of obstacles. From creating new structures like the National Command and Operation Centre that operate outside the constitutional cover, to the ‘lives versus livelihoods’ conundrum with the government machinery struggling to keep the economy afloat, to the dilemmas as to who to prioritise in its vaccine drive, Pakistan’s COVID-19 response was fraught with challenges.
