Despite Turkey having managed to bring down its daily coronavirus fatalities from 100, challenges remain. Ahead of a planned normalization period, which will likely start next week, the daily number of COVID-19 cases rose to 9,572 just days after they had dropped below 7,000. As concerns grew over a new surge in cases, some provinces started introducing new restrictions in the hope of welcoming March with the normalization process. The country plans to gradually reopen businesses and lift curfews based on the decline in cases in each of the 81 provinces, although upward trends may endanger the bid.
But then, there is a glimmer of hope for millions: the vaccination drive. Health Minister Fahrettin Koca announced on Thursday after a meeting of the ministry’s Coronavirus Scientific Advisory Board that more than 50 million people are expected to be inoculated within the next two months.
Koca said Turkey has so far vaccinated 6.5 million people as he explained the government’s ambitious plan to inoculate more than half of the country’s population by the end of May. The number of people who received their first shot reached more than 6.7 million on Friday, while the overall number of vaccinations exceeded 8.3 million. Explaining that 60% of the population needs to be vaccinated for authorities to consider calling the outbreak truly under control, Koca said the deals for the necessary doses were already signed. “We know we will have around 105 million vaccine doses by April or May at the latest. What is important for us is to complete the vaccination campaign by the end of May,” he said. According to Koca, an overwhelming majority of the vaccines – 100 million doses – will be sourced from Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac, whose CoronaVac vaccine is already being used in Turkey. The remaining doses will be BioNTech-Pfizer’s vaccine, Koca said, adding that negotiations were already underway for Russia’s Sputnik V and the Moderna vaccine.
