9th NCDC Report on COVID-19 in Georgia

The National Center for Disease Control and Public Health (NCDC) published another report on the progress of the new coronavirus in Georgia, excluding the occupied regions.

The document published on 4 August is the 9th summary analysis of the epidemiological situation and implemented measures related to the spread of COVID-19 in Georgia on the basis of data from January 2020 to June 2022.

The first case of COVID-19 was detected in Georgia on February 26, 2020. As of 7 August, 1,710,049 cases have been confirmed in the country (excluding the occupied regions), of which 1,679,621 have recovered and 16,877 have died.

Gender and Age Distribution

As of July 1, 2022, 1,661,920 cases were officially confirmed in Georgia, (of which 708,434 were in 2021, and 228,410 in 2020). The cumulative incidence rate, which measures the frequency of the disease in a given time period, was 19,551.2 per 100,000 inhabitants in the period from January 1 to July 1, 2022, 19,000 in 2021, and 6,135.9 in 2020.

By July 1, 2022, a total of 18,161,408 tests were conducted in the country, of which 7,251,308 were PCR tests and 10,910,100 were antigen.

In the period from 2020 to July 1, 2022, the positivity rate for testing was 9.4%. The maximum positivity rates for each year were recorded in November 2020 – 25.2%, August 2021 – 10.3%, and February 2022 – 29.9%.

From January-June 2022, 44.1% were men, and 55.9% of positive cases were women. In 2021, 43.9% of positive cases were men, and 56.1% were women. Finally, in 2020, 42.8% were men while 57.2% of cases were women.

As of July 1, 2022, the number of cases confirmed among children and adolescents (age group 0-18) amounted to 294,649, which was 17.7% of the total confirmed cases. In the first 6 months of 2022, the cumulative incidence rate per 100,000 children/adolescents was 1,448.3, 1,469.7 in 2021, and 253.7 in 2020.

Since the start of the pandemic in Georgia (26.02.20) as of July 1, 2022, the cumulative number of deaths due to COVID-19 was 16.844.

Per the NCDC, as of July 1, 2022, COVID-19 deaths were most prevalent above the age of 60 and accounted for 86.4% of the total number of deaths from the virus.

59% of the patients who died from COVID-19 had various, concurrent chronic diseases such as hypertension – 43.7%, diabetes – 25.6%, oncological diseases – 5.7%, and chronic lung diseases – 4.9%.

“In all fatal cases, the course of the disease was severe or critical. In 82% of cases, the disease was complicated by pneumonia. 79% of those who died had respiratory failure, while 29.1% had respiratory distress syndrome, and 21.7% had heart failure,” the report said.

During the pandemic, 153 people working in a medical facility died from COVID. “Lethality among infected women working in medical institutions was 0.4% and 1.4% among men,” according to the report.

Vaccination

According to the NCDC, as of July 1, 2022, a total of 2,903,548 vaccinations were administered in Georgia. 1,271,642 people have been fully vaccinated with the vaccine, while 255,928 people have received a third booster dose.

Among the fully vaccinated, the highest number of vaccinations – 50.7% – was carried out in the age group of 18-49. Additionally, in absolute numbers, the higher number of vaccinations – 47.51% – was carried out in Tbilisi, the capital.

As of July 1, 2022, 83.8% of doctors, 68.2% of nurses, 58.4% of sanitary workers, and 70.4% of administrative and technical staff have been vaccinated with at least one dose.

Out of the total vaccinations, 2,055 cases resulted in adverse events developing after immunization although only 212 cases were considered to be serious. Out of them, 181 patients needed to be referred to a medical institution, with 48 being inpatient and 133 outpatient.

Out of the serious cases, 78 were after the Sinopharm vaccine, 62 with Pfizer, 38 with AstraZeneca, and 34 with Sinovac.

After reviewing 202 cases, the Immunization Board concluded that 125 were compatible with a causal relationship with immunization (of which 72 cases were related to fear of immunization and 53 to a reaction to the vaccine product). 49 cases, however, were considered incompatible with immunization while 26 cases were deemed unclear. Due to a lack of adequate information, 1 case could not be identified.

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