Turkey Lifts Weekend Lockdowns in Some Cities

World

March 1st, 7:33pm

Asharq Al-Awsat

Pigeons fly over the Ortakoy square during a nation-wide weekend curfew which was imposed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus in Istanbul, Turkey February 28, 2021. (Reuters)

Turkey will lift weekend lockdowns in low and medium-risk cities and limit the restrictions to just Sundays in high and very high-risk cities as it starts a "controlled normalization" of coronavirus measures, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday. Turkey's biggest city, Istanbul, was categorized as high risk, while the capital Ankara was in the medium-risk category. Erdogan said the list of measures would be updated every two weeks on a province-by-province basis. The COVID-19 death toll rose by 69 in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of fatalities to 28,638. Turkey has administered nearly 8.9 million shots in its vaccination campaign, which began in mid-January. Over 7 million people have received their first doses, while second doses have been given to nearly 2 million people. Cafes and restaurants will be allowed to re-open between 7 am and 7 pm at 50 percent capacity, in all provinces except for "very high-risk" ones. All pre-school education institutions across Turkey, elementary schools, grades 8 through 12 would resume in-person classes as of Tuesday, Erdogan said.

from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/2835146/turkey-lifts-weekend-lockdowns-some-cities