Covid – 19 pandemic which left its mark on the year 2020 and shacked the whole world, has changed the life practices of the human kind from its roots. This virus which caused the death of 2,5 million humans as of march 2021 will continue being a part of our lives for a while.
In this process countries made a lot of new bans and regulations in order to fight the spread of the epidemic. Therefore we prepared you the struggles and applications that Turkey has applied from day one till today in order to fight the covid – 19 pandemic spread. Before we go into our article, we need to inform you about somethings. Measures taken under corona virus pandemic change and gets updated regularly. In order to access the most up to date information on this topic you can visit the web page of Health Ministry.
Corona virus was first seen in China’s Wuhan city in December of 2019, after that spreading rapidly all around the globe. The virus which when its name was first heard wasn’t taken seriously by people and countries administrations, has managed to spread around the world in a speed that no virus has managed to spread with ever before.
Turkey has started to take its first measures against corona virus in January. While an operation center against corona virus was being established in the Health Ministry, a corona virus scientific board was established to provide consultancy to the government. In January and in cooperation with the board the Health Ministry has prepared the first guide for covid – 19. When it came to the end of January passengers coming from countries like China, America, Russia started getting their fever measured in airports, borders and etc. And in the same dates it has prepared special warning documents for passengers travelling from Turkey to China. Due to the rising cases in china at the same time Turkish airlines has announced that it has stopped all of its flights to China. As for February flights were stopped with Iraq, Italy, South Korea on both sides mutually.
Up until March when corona virus was still an unimportant topic for Turkey, and that the country had seen no cases yet despite neighboring countries having cases created a sort of comfort among the people. But as of 11th of March 2020 Turkey’s first corona case was detected. After the first death schools around the country was closed. At that time a compulsory quarantine was applied to all Turkish citizens and foreign tourists coming from outside the country.
As for the middle of March bars, night clubs, theatres, cinemas, gyms, and cafes were closed until another notification. While Turkey was slowly stopping flights, a lot of countries including Turkey started banning entries from a lot of countries. As of 20th of March all of the private hospitals were declared pandemic hospitals and in accordance to the scope of the pandemic hospitals started giving treatment services to both Turkish citizens and foreign citizens as well.
When it came to the month of April a serious rise was observed in the epidemic figures. In April first a curfew was applied to people under the age of 20, and was followed by another one people older the age of 65. At the same time walking in the streets without a mask was prohibited. This ban is still active as of March 2021.
At the same time in April a gradual travelling ban was beginning to be applied between cities. At the dates of 10 – 13 April was the first - time for a curfew on the country level. These bans continued throughout April. Coming to May it was the first - time to observe the numbers of recovering patients being higher than those newly infected according to the ministry’s numbers. As of May, even if it was restricted curfew was removed for certain times of the day for citizens over 65 years of age. With the beginning of gradual normalization malls and barbers were allowed to open again in the country.
In June places like restaurants, cafes, parks, gyms, and spas were reopened and allowed to operate in certain hours and in accordance to certain rules. Entertainment places in the country were left out of this freedom. In June also, some airports were reopened and resumed international flights.
In November while curfews and patients were on the rise, restrictions on restaurants were applied again. With the beginning of fall/autumn news and studies from all around the world on vaccine created huge hopes in Turkey. On 30th of December CoronaVac Vaccine’s first part of doses produced by Sinovac arrived at Turkey. The schedule started with the vaccination of doctors and health care workers who were on the top priority list, is now continuing in accordance to the vaccination schedule.
As of March 2021, under the normalization process restrictions were being eased gradually. Now while provinces evaluated in the low - risk group have a weekend curfew, provinces evaluated in the high - risk group have all of the restrictions intact.
Now while a lot of countries require a corona test result from their citizens in order to travel, some countries don’t hold this test as compulsory. Foreigners living in Turkey and foreigners who plan to travel to Turkey must follow the regularly published official statements. There is a lot of embassies and consulates. Country’s citizens can check their countries’ embassies website to access the latest new in their native languages.
Even if all of the regulations change all around the world there is 3 unchangeable rules;
Mask, Distance, Hygiene
If take these three rules into consideration you can protect yourselves and your loved ones from this pandemic.
Wishing you Healthy Days.
