Coronavirus cases surge after govt relaxes restrictions
TURKEY’S new daily Covid19 cases remained over 8,000 on Wednesday as images of holidaymakers at crowded beaches, bars and restaurants and large family gatherings to celebrate Bayram dominated social media.
The 8,151 figure was a decrease from the previous day’s tally of 8,780 new cases, but was still nearly twice the number of new daily cases — 4,418 were recorded on July 4.
The rise comes amid concerns about the highly infectious Delta variant of the coronavirus. The number of Delta variant cases in Turkey more than doubled to approximately 750 from 284 in the space of a week, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca warned on July 12.
Mr Koca shared the news of the surge on Tuesday in a Tweet: “Eid should not offer an opportunity for the virus to spread. We can both celebrate and remain vigilant,” he wrote, urging holidaymakers to refrain from huge gatherings and get vaccinated while still on holidays, rather than wait.
In Van, vaccination units were set up in the courtyards of local mosques to administer doses to people who had come to the places of worship for Bayram morning prayers.
Turkey started a mass vaccination campaign on January 14, first with Sinovac and then with Pfizer. The country has administered nearly 64 million doses, including the third booster shots of the Pfizer vaccine that are said to provide more protection against the more infectious Delta variant.
The Turkish Medical Association said it had repeatedly warned the government about the Delta variant for weeks but to no avail.
“In efforts to boost tourism, Turkey has not only relaxed the anti-pandemic restrictions too quickly but also allowed tourists from the countries with a high percentage of Delta variant to enter Turkey without adequate medical controls and the requirement of a quarantine,” Dr Şebnem Korur Fincancı told Halk TV on Monday in reference to Russian tourists who have arrived in Antalya this summer.
Antalya hosted approximately 307,000 Russian tourists in the last two weeks, according to official data.
She added that new coronavirus cases were around the “9,000-range” and that the government was “consistently downplaying the Delta variant figures, particularly in the southern provinces where there were foreign tourists.”
“We know from the ground that the Delta variant — as well as the number of overall cases — have shown a surge in Antalya,” Dr Lütfi Çamlı, the İzmir
Medical Association chair said.
“Given the massive tourist movement in the coastal areas, we can expect a further surge of Covid-19 and variants after the Bayram and a fourth wave as early as August, according to many academics.”
Turkey managed to lower new daily cases of Covid-19 from around 60,000 in April to around 4,000 in June by closing restaurants, shops and cafes and imposing weekend curfews and by pursuing a mass-vaccination campaign, but Health Ministry officials fear the numbers may surge as a result of the holiday gatherings.
“Stay away from closed and crowded environments . . . It is nice to be united but you do not want to leave the holidays infected with Covid19,” Mr Koca said on Sunday.
TV channels have shown images of crowded beaches and bars, saying most of the country’s popular coastal towns were now full.
“People think that now that the bans are no longer in place . . . and that the vaccination campaign is going on, everything is back to normal. This is wrong,” Mr Çamlı said.
“Only 22 per cent of people in Turkey have had their second jab. This is a far cry from the 70-75 per cent of the population that has received two doses, which is required to attain herd immunity. This action of favouring economics over public health and opening everything up in order not to miss out the tourism season.”
His concerns were shared by the medical chambers of other holiday cities. Cafer Şahin — the chair of the medical chamber of Muğla, the capital of the southwestern province of the same name where resorts such as Bodrum and Marmaris are located — who said that while there was a high level of vaccination in the city, the presence of tourists there, from all over Turkey heightened the risk of an upsurge of cases.
Çesme, a popular Aegean resort town attached to İzmir, was swamped with tourists.
“Half a million cars have entered Çesme since the beginning of the week,” Mayor Ekrem Oran told journalists.
“All accommodations in hotels and bed and breakfasts have been reserved and the locals, the hospitality sector are particularly happy.”
With tourism making up 3.8 per cent of its gross domestic product and accounting for 7.7 per cent of its employment, Turkey has struggled to woo tourists by developing a safe tourism certification programme for its hotels and restaurants and prioritising the vaccination of members in the hospitality sector.