A Hard Rain on a Bad Roof
A Hard Rain on a Bad Roof

Author(s): Paul Bell
Subject(s): National Economy, Economic policy, Government/Political systems, Security and defense, Electoral systems, Health and medicine and law, Geopolitics
Published by: NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence
Keywords: Georgia; COVID-19; economic and political trends; elections;
Summary/Abstract: This past July, as the Georgian summer approached its height, and Tbilisi sweltered, it was clear the country had learned to live with Covid-19. Things had pretty much gone back to normal despite a five-fold rise in infections between one week and the next; numbers had risen from 100 to 500 infections per week, and almost doubled in the capital. (Why the spike? This is pure speculation but there had been two large protest rallies and a pop festival in Tbilisi in the ten days before.) Nonetheless, the health secretary, Zurab Azarashvili, pronounced the epidemiological situation in Georgia ‘calm’ and ‘fully manageable’—and indeed that seemed an altogether fair assessment given that in that preceding fortnight, deaths had been down to between one and three.

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