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Stricter coronavirus measures look inevitable for Istanbul, minister says

Stricter coronavirus measures look inevitable for Istanbul, minister says

Stricter coronavirus measures look inevitable for Istanbul, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said, as COVID-19 patients in the country continued to rise over the weekend and passed the 3,000 threshold.

The warnings came after a meeting between the minister and local health authorities, where they discussed the worsening outbreak situation in the city.

Istanbul, Turkey’s most populous city with nearly 16 million people, was declared the worst-hit city by Koca last month when he said the number of infections in the city made up around 40% of Turkey’s coronavirus cases.

“In our meeting with the provincial health director and chief physicians, we discussed the increasing loads at the hospitals, contact tracing, restrictions that seem inevitable and our new strategies to fight the virus,” Koca wrote on Twitter, following the summit at Istanbul’s Çam (Pine) and Sakura City Hospital.

Turkey has been in favor of introducing restrictions and measures on a provincial basis rather than issuing blanket bans, but the country’s more crowded cities have been recording a dramatic surge in new infections.

While Turkey has been reluctant to resort to draconian measures and bring back curfews or lockdowns, Koca’s warnings came as Turkey witnessed an increasing number of coronavirus cases, despite the government’s best efforts.