There is a new surge in COVID-cases due to the New Year holiday period and the high mobility on mountain resorts. This has been one of the main topics of the first meeting of the government in 2022 chaired by the Prime Minister Irakli Gharibashvili.
According to the new Health Minister Zurab Azarashvili, over 1000 Omicron cases with mild symptoms were confirmed in the laboratory in Georgia so far. Azarashvili confirmed that the country’s healthcare system is fully mobilized to provide proper treatment to coronavirus patients amid the Omicron surge.
"Due to the festive season, we have an increase in the cases of infection. Up to 1000 new cases of Omicron, have been confirmed; the positive side of the new strain is that the inflation has mild symptoms and hospitalization rate is not grown significantly. In addition, the death toll is down”, - said the Health Minister.
Zurab Azarashvili added that Health Ministry’s mobile teams are conducting on-site monitoring of hospitals. New Health Minister declared that the country would also secure COVID-19 treatment pills from Pfizer and Merck in a few weeks, he noted, dubbing the pills ‘effective’ during COVID treatment.
Before that, however, managing COVID-19 in 2021 cost Georgia almost GEL 2 million. As the Finance Minister of Georgia Lasha Khutsishvili said, “GEL 1,930,000,000 was spent on the management of COViD-19; of this, healthcare expenditures amounted to GEL 1,188,000,000, COVID-related social assistance package was determined by GEL 410 million, while the volume of business support totaled to GEL 335 million GEL," said the Minister of Finance.
Prime Minister of Georgia Irakli Gharibashvili called on population to take COVID-19 jabs, as well as, wear face masks and keep the distance.
"Let’s take COVID-19 jabs, make our friends, parents, family members to get vaccinated. We must wear a face mask and keep the distance. Georgian healthcare sector has COIVD-19 shots on the place. In addition, we have already ordered antiviral pills developed by Pfizer; We are also working on the medicine developed by Merka. We will have a COVID-council tomorrow and discuss the situation additionally. Wearing a face mask is essential and we also avoid crowded gatherings.
I understand that mobility is quite high during the New Year days. In addition, the Omicron strain has led to a significant increase in the number of cases, however we must not forget that we need even more mobilization and what is happening in Europe is a good lesson for us. In France, the daily number of infected people exceeded 200,000. Millions of cases of infection were reported in America in per day," said the Prime Minister.
According to the National Center for Disease Control, in the last 24 hours, 2,953 new cases of coronavirus were registered in Georgia, 31 patients died of the virus in the last 24 hours.
