Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19): Lessons learnt from international response and advice to Georgia government

Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19)

This commentary presents an analysis of the containment and mitigation efforts by different countries against the recent COVID-19 pandemic. It was developed in response to Georgia government's decision to relieve lock down restrictions. The article also provides recommendations based on interventions that have been observed to be effective which will guide decision making for not only Georgia but other states and countries that are currently struggling to manage this outbreak.

In December 2019, a new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) was identified as the causative agent of a severe acute respiratory disease (COVID-19) in Wuhan, China, with cases being linked to a wholesale seafood market selling a variety of live animals.1 This was soon declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization.1 Currently more than 13 million confirmed cases and more than 500,000 deaths have been reported around 188 countries globally. The United States is now considered to have widespread community transmission with more than 3 million cases and 135,000 deaths.2 Figure 1 shows the trends of daily confirmed new cases across the ten most affected countries. The top three countries reporting the highest number of cases are the United States, Brazil, and India.

Cite this article

Mawani, M. and Li, C. Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19); Lessons Learnt from International Response and Advice to the Georgia Government. The Innovation 1 (2), 100025 (2020). doi: 10.1016/j.xinn.2020.100025