We will not announce lockdown, there is no need for this. Such a statement made today the Prime Minister of Georgia after the meeting of the Interagency Coordination Council.

“During the first wave, we made the right assessment of our resources, took painful decisions and announced a rather hard lock-down, however we should not forget that back then we did not have a stock of basic facemasks in the country and we were challenged with a deficit of this protective item. Back then we were administering 200 tests a day and no knowledge was held about the virus, like the rest of the world. Information was spreading and everyone hoped that a vaccine would become available in a few months. Unfortunately, it did not.

Today we are in a completely different situation. Lock-down was absolutely the right decision back then, as we were primarily protecting the health and life of our citizens with this measure due to the high degree of uncertainty and lack of the basic facemasks. Today, when the entire world agrees that the facemask is the most effective means of fighting the virus, which reduces the likelihood of contraction by 90%, of course, we will no longer be announcing a similar lock-down. There is no necessity of it and besides the economy of the country will no longer sustain it”, - said Giorgi Gakharia.