Georgian health officials call low rate of vaccination ‘apocalypse, sabotage against state’

Head of Infectious Diseases and AIDS Centre of Tbilisi Tengiz Tsertsvadze has called the low rate of  coronavirus vaccination in Georgia ‘apocalypse and a sabotage against the state by Georgian citizens.’

He says that a certain portion of the German-US Pfizer vaccine, the most effective coronavirus vaccine for now, may spoil because of the 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 have received the coronavirus vaccine over the past several days in Georgia, while the figure stood at around 20,000 and more at the beginning of the month. 

1,700,895 have received one dose of the coronavirus vaccine (Pfizer, Sinovac, Sinopharm or AstraZeneca) since March 2021, of which 740,814 have been completely vaccinated - more than 25 per cent of the country’s adult population. 

816,913 doses of Pfizer vaccine are available in the country now, far more than the remaining three vaccines. 

Georgian health officials say that the low rate of vaccination means increased number of coronavirus deaths. Photo: health ministry press office. 

Deputy head of Georgia’s National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) Paata Imnadze is also concerned, stating that the low vaccination rate will lead to a high number of deaths when the new wave of the virus begins allegedly in late autumn. 

He says that the data of a portion of the Pfizer vaccine expires in December. 

A lot of countries are begging for the Pfizer vaccine, while we have them and people refuse to receive,” Imnadze said. 

The Georgian government has plans to vaccinate at least 60 percent of the country’s adult population by the end of the year. However, health officials say that per the current rate of vaccination it is unlikely to happen. 

More than 25 percent of Georgia's adult population have been completely vaccinated since March 2021. Photo: Nino Alavidze/Agenda.ge.

Georgia has reported 1,653 new cases of coronavirus, 2,646 recoveries and 47 deaths in the last 24 hours. 

A total of 22,885 people remain infected with Covid-19 in the country. 

Coronavirus cases began to seriously surge in Georgia starting July and the government was forced to reimpose several restrictions, including the ban on large events and wearing of face masks both indoors and outdoors. 

Georgia has had 602,065 cases of coronavirus since February 26,2020, of which 570,443 individuals have recovered and 8,711 died from the virus. 

Although the daily coronavirus cases have decreased in Georgia over the past several days, daily deaths still remain high.