Health Minister Ekaterine Tikaradze defines vaccination as the strongest tool against the new Omicron COVID-19 strain.
In the minister's words, the new variant is more transmittable, but doctors who have already faced the Omicron strain do not say that patients catching it show more severe symptoms than those infected with any other previous COVID variants.
Tikaradze noted that as the current data show, Omicron spreads in young people more easily than in senior citizens, but this is probably because 90% of the elderly are vaccinated. ''Citizens having caught the new strain were unvaccinated. From this, it follows that vaccination remains the most effective leverage against the variant. As for managing the virus, the first recommendations we have issued have already been followed,'' she stressed.