Emerging Europe on ‘Georgia’s Coronavirus Miracle’

Emerging Europe has published an article in which it says that Georgia has long been viewed as one of the most successful emerging economies in the world, a bastion of economic liberalism and a model for others to follow.

The article, written by Craig Turp, emphasizes the country’s successful response to the coronavirus pandemic in recent weeks.

In addition, it highlights the government’s effective and timely actions to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Georgia’s government acted as soon as the country’s first case of coronavirus – a Georgian citizen who had recently returned from Iran – was diagnosed, on February 26. The same day, the country’s Prime Minister, Giorgi Gakharia, set up an inter-departmental task force to coordinate the fight against coronavirus, made up of representatives of every major government agency, to manage the situation. The task force’s first decision was to ban flights to Iran.

“Less than 24 hours later, the task force instructed every ministry to draft an action plan against the coronavirus. Flights to Italy were suspended after a second case, a woman who had recently returned from the country, was discovered on February 28. After a third case of coronavirus was discovered on February 29, schools all over the country were closed. Shortly afterwards, stringent lockdown measures were put into place across the country, including a nighttime curfew and the suspension of public transport services, including the closure of the Tbilisi metro.

“Since then, the country has imposed a ban on all non-resident foreign citizens entering the country and effectively closed its borders to all but goods vehicles (although even here the government has insisted that lorry drivers from virus-affected countries be replaced with those from “outside the risk groups”). Georgia halted all passenger air traffic on March 20,” reads the article.

So successful has Georgia been in keeping the virus at bay, that governments around the world are now looking at how the small Caucasus country has managed to control the spread of COVID-19 so well, wrote Emerging Europe.

Yet perhaps the key factor in controlling the outbreak has been the role of the Richard Lugar Public Health Research Centre, part of the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), the author further notes.

“The Lugar Center is a leader in scientific biomedical and biosafety research and preparation, but ever since it opened in 2011 it has been a target for Russian propaganda,” Turp notes.

Author: Craig Turp

Source: Emerging Europe

Image Source: Emerging Europe

Read the full story here.