Government scraps most mandatory mask rules

WEARING masks is no longer mandatory in most indoor settings following the latest set of decisions taken by the Communicable Diseases High Committee.

While masks are still mandatory in places such as health institutions, prisons, elderly care homes and on public transport, they are now only “recommended” to be worn in all other indoor areas, including schools.

Health Minister İzlem Gürçağ Altuğra said that the decisions, published in the Official Gazette on Thursday, were taken due to further falls in the number of

Covid-19 cases, which means that the TRNC’s “risk level” is now “yellow” in a scale that goes from green to red.

According to the latest data published alongside the decisions,

there was a 39.64 per cent decrease in the total number of new Covid19 cases in the TRNC in the week to September 13, falling from 391 in the previous week to 236. The test positivity rate decreased from 5.35 per cent to 3.60 per cent in the last week.

The number of people receiving hospital treatment for Covid-19 fell from 12 on September 6 to three on September 13.

The latest figures also showed that there were two more deaths between the end of August and September 13, bringing the total number of Covid-19 deaths in North Cyprus since the start of the pandemic in March 2020 to 255.