Jubilee Post News & Views
Special Desk
Turkey is preparing for a its first complete lockdown for covid. The decision has been taken to curb the surge in cases.
People are sharing information on the life after lockdown and also input upon where to find articles for their use. Last year Turkey saw a 70% fall in foreign visitors last year. The tourist industry hopes the lockdown will help enable a reopening in time for the summer season.
The streets are crowded, the shopping centres busy and the traffic heavy. Some flock to the main bus terminal to get out of Istanbul, while others are trying to stockpile alcohol amid news of a booze ban. This is similar to what had happened in India.
This time in 2020, Turkey was seen as a success story for its early combative action and was even praised by the WHO. One year on, it is among the countries worst affected by Covid, with the highest infection rate in Europe.
Ankara is still proud of its relatively low total number of deaths, at around 39,000, and authorities say the pandemic is still under control, thanks to the country’s strong healthcare system. But the spike in the number of cases is worrying all now.
Following a second period of restrictions starting last November, the number of daily cases fell to around 6,000 at one point in mid-February. But as soon as the government started to ease the restrictions in March, a new wave struck Turkey. More than 22 million people have been vaccinated so far in this country of 82 million.
Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said recently: “We have sped up vaccine diplomacy for the injections including Sinovac, Pfizer-Biontech and (Russia’s) Sputnik V”.
