Coordination Council Rules Intensive Testing Program to Run 20000 Tests a Day

Within the scope of the two-months of COVID restrictions imposed by the Government of Georgia, an intensive testing program will be active throughout the country. At the same time, a special task force has been established with the instruction of the Prime Minister to prepare the country for the vaccination stage and uninterrupted logistical support of COVID vaccination. Citizens of Georgia will be subject to altered procedures of entry to the country. 

It was mentioned at the meeting of the Co-ordination Council that the state will administer about 20,000 tests a day, which will be supplemented by private lab indicators. At the same time, the application of antigen-based tests will be particularly extended, which generate a response in almost 20 minutes.

The Head of Government of Georgia noted that taking into consideration the challenging epidemic situation and administered tests increasing on a daily basis will facilitate the detection of more infected individuals, which will thereby slow down the community transfer rate and stabilize the situation to a certain extent. Said measures are aimed at informing citizens about the infection status in parallel with the current restrictions, along with their efficient triage resulting in light and less acute cases to be self-isolated, while considerable cases to be placed at COVID Hotels and acute or critical cases to be hospitalized.

The PM instructed all the relevant institutions to be mobilized within the two-month period in view of their resources and workload.

The Council further ruled to alter the procedures of entry to the country for citizens of Georgia. Namely, a citizen of Georgia who arrives without a negative Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test will no longer be required to stay at a quarantine hotel, but will have to self-isolate for 12 days. The citizens of Georgia who arrive with a negative PCR test obtained within the past 72 hours, will be obliged to self-isolate for 8 days.

Citizens with no means of self-isolation will be provided with a stay at quarantine hotels by the state.

Preparation for the vaccination stage was also discussed at the meeting of the Council. The Prime Minister asked for the establishment of a specialized task force for the effective flow of the process with the engagement of all relevant institutions, which means a timely import of vaccines and the execution of all the preliminary preparation works, both in terms of infrastructure and logistics, to make sure that the country gets ready to start the vaccination process.

Amiran Gamkrelidze, Head of the National Center for Disease Control (NCDC), noted that active work is being carried out with the COVAX platform in relation to immunization, along with the progress achieved in negotiations with individual pharmaceutical companies with the instruction of the PM and with an engagement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and overseas diplomatic missions of Georgia.

Availability of hospital beds in the healthcare sector of the country was also discussed at the meeting of the Council today along with the measures taken in addition for the mobilization of extra resources.

Also, on the PM's instruction, the enforcement of COVID restrictions imposed under the two-month plan of the government will become tighter, including the uniform wearing of facemasks and limitations set on mobility. Detailed information on the enforcement of COVID restrictions was shared by the Minister of Internal Affairs of Georgia and Head of the Labor Inspection Department.