Covid-19 deaths increase in Georgia; experts say the peak is yet to come
By Nika Gamtsemlidze
Monday, August 30
The number of deaths from Covid-19 has been increasing last two months. Experts are saying that the little stabilization is a result of the recent restrictions adopted in the country, which minimized movements in the largest cities.
Since the pandemic started, Georgia has reported over 7250 deaths. The number of people dying has been increasing significantly in August, with about 50 people dying of the virus every day on average.
According to the official data, 1355 people have died of coronavirus in the country over the past 28 days. The country has reported a total of over 543,000 cases out of which, 120,915 were reported over the past 28 days.
Some of the health professionals have started talking about the possibility of the number of deaths increasing in the near future. The Medical Director of the Iashvili Children's Hospital, Ivane Ckhaidze talked about this and said that in Georgia, in terms of deaths, the worst period will be the end of August and the first week of September.
He said that it should be considered that the peak of the fourth wave is August 17, following which the number of people infected with the virus started to decrease slowly.
“What is more important, the number of active cases has decreased from 61,000 to 53,000. However, the biggest pain for us is the number of deaths. If we look at the numbers that we have today, we have been talking about this when we assessed the August 17 week. In most cases, 3 weeks after the peak in cases, we have a peak in the number of deaths,” said Ckhaidze.
Yesterday, August 29, the country reported 2,669 new cases and 76 deaths. There were about 25,000 tests taken on Saturday, out of which, 15,027 were antigen tests, and 10,190 were PCR tests.
As the virus further spreads in the country, many people start to talk about the importance of vaccination. Georgia has already administered over 1,122,000 doses of the vaccine. Out of this, 760,899 people have received at least one dose of vaccine, which is 26.6 percent of the population, and 361,310 people have already received both doses, which is 12.7 percent of the population.
There are currently several vaccines available in the country. People can get both first and second doses of Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and Sinovac. As for Sinopharm, there are only doses left for the second dose.
Amiran Gamkrelidze, the director of NCDC has announced that the country will receive more Sinopharm doses. Recently, it was also announced that Georgia will receive 50,000 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine as a gift from Germany. There is only one dose of this vaccine required for immunization. The country expects to receive the doses in September.
