Page 7 - GEORptOct21

2.0 Politics
2.1 Georgian health officials call low rate of vaccination
‘apocalypse, sabotage against state’
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.
About 10,000-11,000 individuals per day have received a coronavirus vaccine in Georgia over the past several days, while the daily figure stood at around 20,000 and more at the beginning of the month.
Overall, 1,700,895 people in Georgia have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine (Pfizer, Sinovac, Sinopharm or AstraZeneca) since March, of which 740,814 have been completely vaccinated. That is equivalent to more than 25% of the country’s adult population.
A total of 816,913 doses of Pfizer vaccine were available in the country as of September 22, a number that was far more than the combined available total of the other three vaccines being used in the country.
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 lot of countries are begging for the Pfizer vaccine, while we have them and people refuse to receive them,” Imnadze said.
The government has plans to vaccinate at least 60% of the country’s adult population by the end of the year. However, health officials said that, per the current rate of vaccination, that was unlikely to happen.
Georgia reported 662 new cases of coronavirus, 3,534 recoveries and 34 deaths in the past 24-hour cycle.
7 GEORGIA Country Report October 2021 www.intellinews.com