Turkey: Restaurants, cafes closing due to COVID-19

By Firdevs Bulut

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey on Monday stepped up measures to stem the coronavirus spread, including the closing of restaurants, cafes, movie theaters, wedding and event venues, and indoors children’s play areas.

In addition, meetings and congresses of all NGOs with high attendance will be suspended starting tonight over coronavirus, the Interior Ministry announced.

All funeral gatherings traditionally held at homes are also banned, starting tonight, due to the risk of exposure to the virus through crowds.

The novel coronavirus known as COVID-19 emerged in Wuhan, China last December, and has so far spread to at least 146 countries and territories, and the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a pandemic.

According to Worldometer, a website that compiles new case numbers, out of roughly 173,000 confirmed cases, the death toll is over 6,600, while more than 77,500 of them have recovered.

The current number of active cases is over 88,500, with 93% in mild condition and 7% in critical condition.

Turkey, which had 18 confirmed COVID-19 cases as of Monday, earlier stopped flights from China, Iran, Iraq, Italy, and South Korea.

Other measures include temporarily closing schools and universities, halting public events and activities, and suspending sports events.