Turkey is starting to ease coronavirus restrictions as part of its controlled normalization process, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said in a press conference late Monday.
“We will lift weekend curfews in low and medium risk regions,” he told reporters after a cabinet meeting in the capital Ankara.
“Curfews will remain in high and very high risk regions on Sundays,” Erdoğan added, emphasizing the country’s new region-based approach.
“Restaurants and cafés will operate with half capacity in cities excluding very high risk regions,” he said, adding that they would operate from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Turkey’s largest metropolis, Istanbul, was listed as a high-risk area, while the capital Ankara was in the medium-risk category.
The president noted that the list of measures would be updated on a bi-weekly and a province-by-province basis.
Erdoğan also said that Turkey has vaccinated over 10% of its total population so far.
“Normalization” refers to the reopening of businesses closed due to a surge in the outbreak last year, particularly restaurants and cafes, and the lifting of curfews that confined millions in their homes across Turkey. Some basic rules, like mandatory masks and social distancing, will remain in force. However, an end to restrictions will certainly allow for a sigh of relief for people banned from going out after 9 p.m. every day and confined to their homes during the 56-hour lockdown on weekends.
The first “normalization” in June 2020 was relatively successful until the onset of autumn when people started spending more time indoors and returned to big cities from holiday resorts. A rapid rise in the number of cases forced authorities to reintroduce most restrictions.
Like other countries, Turkey faces the dilemma of letting people go out freely and risking a new wave of infections or pushing for extended restrictions and face a growing number of people violating them. Both scenarios will affect the outbreak trends, so the government has sought a third, safer option. This option, announced as “Decision On The Ground” by Health Minister Fahrettin Koca, involves a gradual lifting of restrictions and hands the authority to remove them to local administrations. Public health boards in each province are now tasked with removing or imposing restrictions based on rising and declining case numbers. A color-coded system introduced by the ministry earlier this month will be used as a guide and serves as a warning for citizens ignoring the restrictions.
The Health Ministry recently started publishing two-week figures for each of the 81 provinces, showing the average number of cases per population of 100,000 people. Those scoring lowest will be the first to get rid of curfews and start business reopening, though it won’t be a “sudden” reopening, as authorities point out. Governorates will be able to bring back curfews and other measures if the number of cases spikes again.
