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competitions with spectator attendance) from April 1.
Non-food retail trade, including weekends, including both shopping malls and fairs, will resume operations from March 8.
In addition, the coronavirus coordinating council has decided to further ease regulations on the admission of visitors to the country. In particular, the list of countries whose citizens can enter the country with a negative PCR test will be enlarged from March 1 with the addition of several countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Russia and Ukraine.
According to the government website stopcov.ge, 2,501 new infections were detected in Georgia on December 7, as a result of which the total number of infections increased to 164,976. The death toll rose by 36. In total, the virus has officially been behind the deaths of 1,540 people in the country.
In the early days of the pandemic, Georgia enjoyed one of the most enviably low infection rates in the world. Things began to fall apart in late summer, however, as Georgians let their guard down on their seaside vacations and the disease began to spread rapidly.
In an attempt to move down from this peak, Georgia announced a reprise of the lockdown that managed to keep the coronavirus in check in the spring. The government imposed a set of tight restrictions to curb the spread of coronavirus to be applied between November 28 and March 1, in tandem with a new assistance programme to provide both social and business support.
2.5 Polls & Sociology
Baltic States’ foreign ministers issue joint statement on Georgia
Georgia’s corrupted anti-corruption strategy
The foreign ministries of the three Baltic states, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, issued on February 26 a joint statement addressing the political turmoil in Georgia sparked by the arrest of a leading opposition figure as part of a government crackdown.
The ministers, Gabrielius Landsbergis of Lithuania, Edgars Rinkevics of Latvia and Eva-Maria Liimets of Estonia “express” serious concerns over the political situation developing in Georgia and urge all political forces to act with restraint, de-escalate the situation and seek a constructive solution in the interest of Georgia and all its citizens.
The ministers say they are “concerned” with the detention of Nika Melia, the leader of the main opposition party, the United National Movement.
“We believe in the future of Georgia as a free, independent and democratic state. We support the choice of the Georgian citizens to associate their country’s future with the democratic transatlantic community and to aim for integration with the European Union and Nato. We stress the importance of political stability in order to reach those ambitious foreign policy goals,” the ministers said.
Transparency International this week pointed to Georgia as an example of how not to do things once you have earnt initial plaudits as a country moving ahead with anti-corruption efforts. “Georgia’s anti-corruption reforms stall amid political crisis and allegations of state capture,” was the headline on a blog post the Berlin-based NGO put out with its Corruption
11 GEORGIA Country Report March 2021 www.intellinews.com