Turkey to impose 4-day curfew amid COVID-19

By Burak Bir, Fahri Aksut and Dilara Hamit

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey will impose a four-day partial curfew beginning Friday midnight in an effort to stem spread of the novel coronavirus, the country's president said Monday.

Quarantine has been lifted in 300 settlements, while it continues at 112 locations, Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a televised address following a Cabinet meeting in Istanbul.

Erdogan said the four-day partial curfew will be effective as of May 15 midnight.

The first curfew was declared on April 11-12 and it was followed by others in the past weeks.

People over 65 years will be allowed to leave their homes, remaining within walking distance and wearing masks, on May 17 between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. local time (0800-1400GMT), he said.

Children under 14 years will be allowed out on May 20 and 22 during the same hours, also within walking distance and wearing masks, he added.

Meanwhile, Turkey lifted coronavirus travel restrictions for the cities of Adana, Diyarbakir, Mardin, Trabzon, Ordu, Denizli, Kahramanmaras, Sanliurfa, Tekirdag, as part of the normalization process, Erdogan said.

He added that a National Solidarity Campaign to raise money to fight the virus and its impact had netted some 2 billion Turkish liras ($282 million) in donations.

As of Sunday, Turkey registered a total of 3,786 deaths due to coronavirus whereas nearly 92,691 people have recovered from the disease. Currently, there are 138,657 confirmed cases in the country.

After originating in China last December, COVID-19 has spread to at least 187 countries and regions. Europe and the US are currently the worst-hit regions.

The pandemic has killed over 283,500 people worldwide, with total infections more than 4.13 million, while recoveries surpassed 1.42 million, according to figures compiled by the US’ Johns Hopkins University.