ISTANBUL (AP) – Turkey’s weekly regional COVID-19 numbers continue to rise and deaths increase, as the country maintains more relaxed restrictions for the time being.
The country’s official death toll in the pandemic rose to 30,061 on Sunday, when the government reported 102 new deaths. Daily deaths have dropped to an average of 65 in the previous two weeks.
Ministry of Health statistics released late on Saturday showed the infection rate of more than 251 cases per 100,000 in Istanbul, the country’s largest city – an increase of 41% since last week. That means about 40,000 new infections in Istanbul alone, which has quadrupled from the figures released six weeks ago.
The government divided its 81 provinces into four risk categories and said it would evaluate “controlled normalization” efforts at the local level every two weeks. The latest figures show that many cities are becoming “very high risk” or “high risk”.
Turkey’s president announced this week that relaxed restrictions, such as restaurant meals and reduced curfew, will continue “for some time” despite rising infections, but said tougher measures could be resumed.
According to the measures announced in early March, curfews on weekends remained in effect in “very high risk” cities and Sunday blocks continued in “high risk” cities. The restaurants are open for internal and external dinners in all categories, except “very high risk”, and evening curfews are applied across the country.
The seven-day average of infections across the country rose to more than 19,000, reaching the daily rates recorded for the last time in December. The number of intensive care patients and deaths is also increasing.
Facing an economic crisis, the government is under pressure from businessmen to resume operations during the pandemic.
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