Fady Asly, Chairman of the Board of the International Chamber of Commerce, issued a statement regarding the current restrictions on flights in Georgia.
“Open Letter to the Georgians
My fellow Georgians, I am writing to you out of the bitterness and of the sadness that I feel in my heart; since March this year hundreds of thousands of you have lost your jobs, and thousands have closed your businesses, you have drowned into debts and are unable to feed your families anymore; all this because of a virus that in the worst cases kills about 0.05% of the population, and for anyone under 65 years old is not more lethal than seasonal flu; for you to better understand the lethality of this Coronavirus, you have more chances of dying in a car accident while driving from Tbilisi to Gori than dying from the virus.
Over the past five months, the government has brainwashed us with the alleged dangers of this virus, hinting of a deadly disease that could kill thousands and thousands, at a time it is a virus that is survived by 99.5% of the population.
The countries that were the most affected by the virus have already opened up their borders, I will name France, Italy, Spain, Netherland and the rest of Europe, all of them wealthy countries unlike Georgia.
Among all the countries of Europe and of the region, Georgia is the country that depends the most upon tourism for its economy, and despite that, our government is still persisting in keeping our airports closed, and to justify themselves some of our government officials claim that opening up the airports will harm the economy, which is utmost non sense.
At a time many of you are unable anymore to feed your families for having lost your jobs or your businesses, or are being unable to sell your farm products, or are suffering from a salary cut, government officials with guaranteed jobs and salaries, are managing the country like a computer simulation game and are capitalizing on the misery of each citizen to gain political points.
Every day that passes with our airports closed will result in more Georgians losing their jobs, more poverty, more depression related diseases, more suicides, more cancers, more heart attacks and more criminality, and all this for what?
COVID-19 will stay with us for many years; we just need to learn how to live with it a normal life, through proper hygiene and some social distancing, but surely not by locking up our country and disconnecting ourselves from the outer world.
Today despite having the lowest deaths rate per million in the world, we are still keeping our country closed, till when? Till they discover a vaccine? This can take a year or more! Will we keep ourselves jailed inside our own country for so long because our government is too scared of few more cases of the virus?
It is proven that 4% of those who lose their jobs die from depression related illnesses within 5 years. This means that within the coming five years between 10 thousand and 15 thousand Georgians will die because of the government lockdown policies and their management of the crisis, and all this for what? For a disease that is survived by 99.5% of the population?
My fellow Georgians, it is time to start using our brains and start questioning the sanity of government decisions and policies and their impact on both our lives and our livelihoods”, Fady Asly writes in his open letter.
