Georgia: 57,000 people got re-infected with Covid-19 in January

Re-infection with coronavirus in Georgia

In January, about 57,000 cases of re-infection with coronavirus were registered in Georgia. This was announced by the head of the National Center for Disease Control Amiran Gamkrelidze. According to him, the peculiarity of the Omicron strain is that it “bypasses” the old strains, and therefore increases the chances of re-infection.

According to Gamkrelidze, according to the latest data, 14% of the 1,800 laboratory-confirmed cases of reinfection were detected where sequencing was carried out and omicron-specific tests were used.

“One of the important features of Omicron is that it bypasses old strains and the chance of re-infection is high. Approximately three, four, five times higher”, said Amiran Gamkrelidze.

It is noteworthy that on the recommendation of epidemiologists and amid the rapid spread of the Omicron, 672 schools out of 2,085 public and 217 private schools across the country have switched to full distance learning, while 146 teachers at risk have expressed a desire to conduct distance learning.

“Over the past week, 5.8% of teachers and 2.1% of students in Georgia have tested positive for coronavirus. At this point, 73.6% of teachers and representatives of school administrations have been vaccinated”, the Georgian Ministry of Education says.

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Due to the rapid spread of the Omicron variant, the Georgian government has developed a new vaccination plan, which aims to have 70% of the adult population vaccinated by July.

The target was set based on the recommendations of the World Health Organization: the elderly, people with chronic diseases, medical personnel and other key groups who, by virtue of their profession, are at high risk, says Deputy Health Minister Tamar Gabunia.

The previous national plan aimed to have 60% of the population vaccinated by the end of 2021, although only 42.7% of the population over 18 years of age has been fully vaccinated so far.