ISTANBUL (AP) – Turkey’s weekly local COVID-19 figures are rising and deaths are rising as the country maintains more relaxed restrictions for now.
The country’s official death toll in the pandemic climbed to 30,061 on Sunday when the government reported 102 new deaths. Daily deaths have dropped to an average of 65 over the past two weeks.
Statistics from the Ministry of Health announced late Saturday that the infection rate is more than 251 cases per 100,000 in Istanbul, the country’s largest city – 41% higher than last week. That means about 40,000 new infections in Istanbul alone, which has quadrupled from the numbers first released six weeks ago.
The government has divided its 81 provinces into four risk categories, saying it will evaluate a “controlled normalization effort” at local level every two weeks. The latest figures show that many cities have ‘very high risk’ or ‘high risk’.
The Turkish president announced this week that relaxed restrictions, such as meals in the restaurant and reduced curfew, would continue “for a while” despite increasing infections, but said stricter measures could be brought back.
According to measures announced in early March, curfew rules remained in very high-risk cities and continued in high-risk cities on Sunday. Restaurants are open for indoor and outdoor dining in all categories except a very high risk, and nightclubs are applied across the country.
The average of seven days of infections across the country has risen to more than 19,000, reaching the daily rates last seen in December. The number of patients in critical care and deaths is also increasing.
The government is under pressure from business owners to face an economic downturn to resume operations during the pandemic.
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