REGIONAL PECULIARITIES OF THE PANDEMIC IN GEORGIA AT THE INITIAL STAGE OF THE CORONAVIRUS

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  Aspects of behavior and functioning of every state, social institute, human are rapidly changing in the modern world. The pandemic occurring at the current stage of societal life has had an essential impact on the development of the society. This was reflected in the changes of humans’ sociological, economic, psychological, educational, cultural and other types of behaviors. In the fight against the global pandemic we notice a societal regress and therefore a wide study of the societal losses caused by the pandemic and coming up with preventive measures on the global as well as regional scale occupy an important place on today’s agenda. Gradually, an opinion to the effect that the world will change and never be the same takes root in a society. Consequently, scientists must answer the following questions coming from the society: how will the coronavirus develop and reach its end, will there be other waves of the virus and how much more dangerous can they be compared to the first one? What will be the new format of the fight against it? How will economy, education, science and culture develop? What kinds of risks and threats are expected to rear up in the world, on its certain continents, countries, etc.? The issue is all the more pressing and urgent not only because of the display of the pandemic’s peculiarities today and in the previous period with regard to various fields of societal development, but also as a result of the need to analyze the possible scenarios and trends of the post-pandemic period in regional perspective. The above-mentioned indicates the necessity of establishing the newest interdisciplinary field of science – pandemology. The fact of the matter is that as opposed to the existing science field of epidemiology, the research object of pandemology is broader and is derived from the global character of pandemics. Epidemiology belongs to the sphere of medicine whereas pandemology has to study not only medical domain but also the consequences caused by economic, demographic, sociological, psychological and other types of behavioral changes itself occasioned by the pandemic on the global scale as well as differentially, according to certain continents and countries. In this regard, we present regional peculiarities of the results of a research conducted in some fields of pandemology, namely, sociology of pandemics and economy of pandemics in Georgia at the initial stage of the coronavirus. Against the background of risk perception and knowledge of the threat of pandemic, the article discusses the self-preservative preventive behavior of the population. It further analyzes the results of the population’s self-caring and economic behavior under those social-economic conditions which are brought about by the pandemic.