The number of cases of COVID-19 in Turkey has dropped significantly, and experts expect the summer season to further reduce the current pandemic rates.
“Make no mistake, the pandemic is not over” is the common opinion of health experts, but they are more optimistic about the decline of coronavirus cases. The long days of summer may be a cure, so to speak, to further decrease the number of cases, as has been the trend in the past two years.
“We will see lower figures in June,” professor Mustafa Necmi Ilhan, a member of the Health Ministry’s Coronavirus Scientific Advisory Board, said. Since 2020, the board has been making recommendations to the government on restrictions on daily life to fight against the pandemic more effectively. In the early days, it used to convene almost every week, issuing new warnings. But today, it is less active, thanks to a steep decline in the daily cases, at 6,893 as of Monday and lower fatalities, at 28.
The dramatic drop in the daily numbers, from around 100,000 just a few months ago, even encouraged Health Minister Fahrettin Koca, who had long adopted an extremely cautious tone throughout the pandemic, repeatedly appealing to the public to adhere to protective measures. “We are going back to the days when you did not know who Fahrettin Koca is,” the minister, who became a household name in Turkey during the pandemic, joked in a tweet on Sunday.
The sudden change in the situation is no miracle for Turkey, which strived to keep the cases at a minimum at the cost of damage to the economy and collective mental fatigue with bans constricting daily life. Combined with a natural switch of the virus to the less lethal strain omicron, which has dominated the cases in Turkey since last year, the restrictions, as well as mass vaccination, paid off in the long run.
Ilhan told Ihlas News Agency (IHA) Tuesday that Turkey may maintain the current momentum in the number of cases if people continue adhering to personal measures and people, particularly those in “risk groups” – the elderly citizens and those with chronic illnesses, get properly vaccinated.
Personal measures are wearing protective masks, maintaining social distancing and adhering to hygiene rules. Masks are still ubiquitous as they are mandatory in crowded indoor venues as well as in mass transit, though an outdoor mask rule was recently scrapped. As a matter of fact, the indoor mask rule is the tightest restriction currently in Turkey, which had introduced lockdowns and curfews throughout the pandemic.
Ilhan warned that though the coming days may alleviate the impact of the pandemic, the public should exercise caution, especially during Ramadan Bayram (Eid al-Fitr). The Islamic holiday, which will be marked starting on May 1, is an occasion for family get-togethers, where children traditionally visit their elderly parents and/or grandparents. Ilhan urged the public to keep their masks on during their visit to the elderly and keep the visit short if they are indoors.
