Turkey Is Preparing For Its Very First Full Lockdown Due To Covid

Image Credit – BBC

The traffic is heavy and the shopping centers are busy and the streets are also crowded in Turkey. Some of the people are seen flocking to the main bus terminal as they try to get out of Istanbul. Others are very busy trying to stockpile alcohol as there has been news of a ‘booze ban’.

This is the general mood in the country as Turkey is preparing hard later on Thursday so that they can enter its very first full lockdown of the pandemic. This is done to curb the surge in the number of deaths and infections.

All the WhatsApp groups are now dominated by a string of messages about how life will be in the upcoming days.

Last year, this time, Turkey was very much a success story because of the early combative action. The country was even praised by WHO for its efforts.

It is among the worst affected countries by Covid after just one year as it has got the highest rate of infections in Europe.

The rate of infection in the country soared up drastically. People in Ankara are still proud of the fact that there is a relatively lesser number of deaths and it is something around 39,000. According to the authorities, the pandemic is still under control. The credit for these goes to the strong health care system of the country. But there are worrying signs as there is a spike in the number of cases.

It is followed by the second period of restrictions that has started last November. The entire number of daily cases fell to something around 6,000 at some point in the middle of February.

But in March, the government started to ease the restrictions and a new wave has struck Turkey.

The government has taken a U-turn and re-imposed restrictions at the start of April. Nevertheless, it was not enough to curb the spread of infections.

There have been more than 60,000 new cases in a day at its height in April and there have been more than 300 deaths.

Things took a bad turn as the government lifted restrictions very early. According to the critics, the vaccination process was also not very fast.

As far as vaccination is concerned, more than 22 million people are vaccinated in a country that has a population of 82 million.

The Chinese Sinovac vaccine is primarily used by Turkey and they also use lower numbers of Pfizer-Biotech.

Recently, Fahrettin Koca, the health minister of the country has said that they have sped up the vaccine diplomacy for the injections that include Pfizer-Biotech, Sinovac vaccine, and Sputnik V.

There has been another criticism that the ruling AK party of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has organized a packed congress in March. They have banned public protests and many social gatherings.

According to scientists, the new variant, the UK (Kent) strain has accelerated the infection rate and made matters even worse.

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