Georgia trying to fight Coronavirus with minimal damage to economy - Prime Minister

The Georgian authorities are fighting the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), introducing a number of restrictions and at the same time trying to minimize damage to the economy, Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia said.

"We will all cope with this global crisis. Maybe this will happen in a month, maybe in five months, but as soon as we globally get out of this crisis, a new global economic competition will begin. The point of this challenge is that the world has no such type of experience, so it would be irresponsible to make concrete promises," Gakharia said.

"The promise should be one: the state is ready daily together with citizens to act effectively and fight to minimize both damage to the economy and in the sphere of health, which we will unfortunately get," he told the Rustavi 2 television company.

Gakharia said Georgia was technically ready for the introduction of a state of emergency due to the coronavirus outbreak, but added that the authorities would not yet resort to that.

The World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11 declared the outbreak of the novel coronavirus disease a pandemic. More than 179,000 people in over 150 countries have gotten infected, most have recovered, over 7,400 people have died. In Georgia, 34 cases of infection with COVID-19 have been registered. The country's authorities daily introduce various restrictions to prevent the disease spread.