With the initiative of the Prime Minister of Georgia Irakli Garibashvili, individuals charged for administrative or criminal offenses during COVID restrictions will be pardoned, thus setting them free from penalty payments. As noted by the Prime Minister of Georgia, over 245 000 citizens and 344 legal entities will be eligible for the amnesty under the initiative. Namely, around 76 MM GEL will be pardoned from them for not wearing the facemasks and/or staying out of isolation or quarantine.
Ketevan Chkhatarashvili, one of the founders of the Forbes Georgia Health Platform declares, that there is no apparent reason why these decisions have been made.
"Given the current economic situation, how realistic it is to remove those fines is another matter. Just when people know that the implementation of the imposed regulations is controlled, they are more careful.
Now we must rely on the self-awareness of citizens who are very tired of living in these conditions. No matter what we tell the population, it will be difficult to increase their tolerance, ”Chkhatarashvili told BM.GE.
According to her, merely 2% of the population is vaccinated when amnesty is announced and COVID- restrictions are lifted. All these are illogical, as the 4th wave of a pandemic is expected.
"The danger is real, we have opened the borders, we are preparing for the tourist season, the vaccination process has actually stopped. We have such a reality: we will talk about the epidemiological development in 2-3 weeks,” said Chkhatarashvili.
