ANKARA, Apr 27 (NNN-ANADOLU) – Turkey announced yesterday that, it will impose a full lockdown, in a bid to curb the rise in COVID-19 cases.
The lockdown will last from Apr 29 to May 17, with an aim to lower the daily cases below 5,000, Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said.
Intercity travels will be restricted to permission only, intercity public transport will operate at 50 percent capacity, while schools in all levels will suspend face-to-face education, he said.
But the manufacturing and food sectors will be exempted from the restrictions, Erdogan added.
Turkey yesterday reported 37,312 new COVID-19 cases, including 2,716 symptomatic patients, as the total number of positive cases in the country reached 4,667,281, according to its health ministry.
The death toll rose by 353 to 38,711, while the total recoveries climbed to 4,121,671, after 48,027 more cases recovered in the last 24 hours.
The rate of pneumonia in COVID-19 patients stands at 2.4 percent and the number of seriously ill patients was 3,563, said the ministry.
A total of 268,893 tests were conducted over the past day, with the overall number of tests in Turkey reaching 46,153,151.
Turkey started mass vaccination against COVID-19 on Jan 14, after the authorities approved the emergency use of the Chinese CoronaVac vaccine. More than 13,334,000 people have been vaccinated so far.
