Page 7 - GEORptNov21

2.0 Politics
2.1 Georgia PM vows not to make vaccinations mandatory
Georgian health officials call low rate of vaccination ‘apocalypse, sabotage against state’
Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Gharibashvili has vowed “not to allow” mandatory vaccination against COVID-19.
Responding to reporters on October 24 during a pre-election campaign trip to Telavi, the prime minister said Georgian citizens should enjoy “the right and an opportunity of free choice”.
“I did my best to bring more than enough – millions – of vaccines... We brought all different kinds of vaccines in Georgia,” Gharibashvili went on, adding that “we have to convince people, not force them”.
Assessing the declining pace of vaccination in the country as “sad”, the prime minister said that strong anti-vaxxer campaigns are also present in both Europe and US. “In reality, this is disinformation... We should trust scientists.” Georgia began a vaccine rollout in mid-March, hoping to vaccinate 60% of the adult population (about 1.7mn out of 2.8mn) by the end of 2021.
As of October 25, according to the National Center for Disease Control, 1,024,769 people have received at least one jab of the COVID vaccine, including 925,169 people — some 33% of the adult population – that are fully vaccinated.
The head of the Infectious Diseases and AIDS Centre of Tbilisi, Tengiz Tsertsvadze, has described Georgia's low rate of coronavirus vaccination as “an apocalypse and a sabotage against the state by Georgian citizens”. Tsertsvadze said that a certain delivered amount of the German-US Pfizer vaccine, widely viewed as the most effective coronavirus vaccine, may spoil because of low demand in the country.
“Who would spoil Pfizer? It is very unreasonable what is going on,” Tsertsvadze said.
Deputy head of Georgia’s National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Paata Imnadze, was also concerned, stating that the low vaccination rate would lead to a high number of deaths when the new wave of the virus started. Observers fear that the wave will gain unmistakable momentum in late autumn.
Imnadze said that Georgia has Pfizer vaccine shots that would expire in December.
A total of 8,106 people were vaccinated in the latest recorded 24 hour-cycle in Georgia, well short of the government’s goal of 30,000 people daily as it tries to reach its target of 60%-of-the-population-vaccinated by the year's end, officials said on October 5. The vaccination rate began to decline several weeks ago and less than 10,000 vaccinations have been administered daily since the start of October.
7 GEORGIA Country Report November 2021 www.intellinews.com