Turkish businesses call for mandatory vaccinations.
The vaccination certificate should be made mandatory for indoor restaurants, cafes, nightclubs, gyms, cinemas, concerts or wedding venues from Sept. 1, said Turkish Restaurant and Entertainment Association (TURYID) head Kaya Demirer.
Demirer stressed a new wave of the coronavirus pandemic that has plagued the world is due to show its impact because of the rapidly spreading delta variant. He echoed the warning of experts who say the surging cases following a nine-day Islamic holiday of Qurban Bayram, also known as Eid al-Adha, that ended Sunday were signs of a major challenge in autumn.
Turkey’s new COVID-19 cases jumped to 14,230 Sunday, more than triple the amount three weeks earlier, reaching levels last seen in the first half of May, according to Health Ministry data.
The infections reached a daily peak above 60,000 during a wave in April-May. They then fell to a low of 4,418 on July 4 after a lockdown that ended in mid-May. Most of the final restrictions were lifted this month.
Health Ministry statistics also showed that the seven-day average stood at 10,269, a significant increase from the average of the previous week at 6,880.
Turks have been arriving back in the cities after the nine-day holiday when they and international tourists flocked to seaside towns. However, unlike in past COVID-19 waves, deaths and hospitalizations have not progressed in lockstep with rising cases, thanks to mass vaccinations since the start of the year.
Fifty-five new deaths were also recorded Sunday, bringing the reported death toll to 50,934.
