Turkey announces total containment as COVID cases surge

COVID-19 infection figures in Turkey are rising exponentially. The Eurasian country announced a series of restrictions in an attempt to contain the contagions without affecting the already weakened Ottoman economy, the number of people affected has suddenly increased, confirming the bad records that many analysts had predicted. 

Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, announced that the country will be completely sealed off from Thursday night until the early hours of 17 May to prevent the spread of the pandemic.

The Turkish government decided this week to report all positive coronavirus tests, not just the number of patients being treated for symptoms, raising the number of daily cases to nearly 5,000. With the new data, the country went from being one of the least affected countries in Europe to one of the hardest hit by the pandemic. 

"We must quickly reduce the number of cases to less than 5,000 a day so as not to fall behind Europe, which is beginning a period of reopening," he said, specifying that a continuous curfew will be in place and all workplaces will be closed "with some exceptions, such as manufacturing or cleaning centres", although food delivery services will also continue to be offered. "Inter-city travel is by permit only and buses will operate at 50 per cent capacity. All face-to-face education classes will be halted and exams will be postponed," Erdogan said.

Turkey had already tightened restrictions aimed at containing the spread of the virus on 13 April, the first day of Ramadan, a month when family and friends gather to break their fast. The country has thus managed to partially curb the rise in infections, but the figure is still far short of the announced target of 5,000 cases per day. 

The Turkish Medical Association set alarm bells ringing a month ago when it warned that, according to antibody tests, there are ten times more active coronavirus patients than official figures show.  The government is giving in to one of the demands of the Turkish Medical Association (TTB), which has long criticised the current measures - a night-time curfew and hospitality closures - as insufficient to curb the pandemic. When Turkey changed the way it reports daily COVID-19 infections, it confirmed what medical groups and opposition parties have long suspected: that the Ottoman country is facing a huge surge in cases of infection that is calling into question the resilience of the healthcare system. 

In the past 24 hours, 353 people have died from COVID, according to Health Ministry data released, a figure only surpassed by those recorded last Tuesday and Wednesday. After a four-fold increase in deaths in just one month, the number of deaths per day has remained between 340 and 360 cases for the past week, after reaching a peak of more than 60,000 infections per day since the beginning of April.

Turkey, with a population of 83 million, launched a nationwide vaccination campaign in January with the Chinese vaccine SinoVac. So far, 13.3 million people have received the first dose of the vaccine and 8.1 million have received the two doses. The country has also received 2.8 million doses of the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine and has started using them. In addition, a vaccine developed by Turkey is scheduled to be ready for use in April and the Turkish pharmaceutical company Viscoran will start producing the Russian COVID-19 Sputnik V vaccine soon, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) has announced.

The pandemic landed in Turkey in early March. Early social distancing, mobility restrictions, testing and improvements in health capacity helped contain the spread of the virus and the number of deaths.  However, the economy came to an almost sudden halt during the second quarter of 2020. And fiscal, monetary and financial measures focused support on alleviating some of the most severe consequences of the pandemic.

These political trade-offs, coupled with the continuing uncertainty due to the pandemic, present a very diverse range of possibilities for the economic outlook. The lack of foreign exchange at the Central Bank and rising inflation are again putting downward pressure on the Turkish lira. Shrinking reserves, rising inflation, rising debt and a currency devaluation or the dismissal of the former governor of the Central Bank after the decision to raise interest rates to 19%, a decision contrary to the views of Erdogan who has always been highly critical of such economic policies, all augur that the economy may collapse.

The coronavirus crisis is leaving national economies around the world badly shaken. Especially those, such as Turkey, that are on the road to recovering from the 2008 economic crisis.

Turkey reopened the economy in most sectors in early June. Since then, the number of cases has been growing to its highest level since May, when closures were put in place in the country.