A weekend excursion, eating out, going to school: These basic comforts from the pre-pandemic era are back in Turkey as the country started lifting restrictions, at least some of them, on Tuesday. After more than 100 days that took a toll on businesses and confined millions to their homes for most of the week, the government announced a new “normalization” process.
The new era, named the “controlled normalization process” by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is hailed by residents of provinces reporting low case numbers, while people living in coronavirus hot spots will have to wait longer for a return to the old days where their movement was not restricted. The curfews have been partially lifted and some closed businesses were allowed to reopen across the country, except in places with the highest risk level.
Erdoğan gave the good news to the public after a Cabinet meeting on Monday and announced weekend curfews in “low- and medium-risk provinces” would be removed. In riskier places, they will remain in place but only for Sundays, while a night-time curfew for weekdays and Saturday night will remain intact. Primary schools, which have been closed for months, also reopened on Tuesday, after a one-day delay as they were scheduled to open Monday. In-person education also resumed for middle and high schools in low- and medium-risk provinces. Schools in rural areas with no COVID-19 cases already reopened last month.
In low- and medium-risk provinces, curfew restrictions were lifted for people aged 65 and above as well as for those under 20. In high-risk and very high-risk provinces, the permitted time period to go out for those aged 65 and over and under 20 will be increased from three hours to four hours. People aged 65 and over will be able to go out between 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and those under 20 between 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.
