Georgia Unveils New Curbs as COVID Cases Climb

The Government of Georgia unveiled a set of new COVID-19 restrictions for the next three weeks, as the number of active cases of virus surpassed 47 thousand, the highest ever since the onset of the pandemic in February 2020.

At a special briefing today, Giorgi Ghibradze of the The Inter-Agency Coordination Council, tasked with handling the pandemic in Georgia, said municipal transport will be suspended during August 14 – September 4 period. Intercity transport will remain operational, however.

In addition, festivals, concerts, children amusement centers, and sports events (except for planned international sports events) will be banned, while restraurants, bars and other food facilities will have to end working hours at 23:00, instead of finishing at midnight.

Ghibradze also said the Coordination Council will discuss a recommendation by NCDC Georgia, requiring citizens to show a vaccination certificate (with one or two doses), a negative PCR test result of previous 72 hours, or negative rapid/antigen test result performed in past 24 hours, upon entering restaurants, spas, fitness centers, or similar establishments.

Georgia reported 5,128 new cases of COVID-19 today, bringing the tally of the total confirmed cases to 466,326, and 3,310 recoveries, taking the overall number of recoveries to 412,420. The number of COVID-related deaths stand at 6,279, as 49 patients passed away yesterday.

Paata Imnadze, Deputy Head of NCDC Georgia said a week ago, that highly contagious delta variant amounts to roughly 80% of new cases nationwide, while in Tbilisi and Batumi, biggest hotspots, virtually all cases belong to delta variant.

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