COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey
[5] The Turkish health system[5] has the highest number of intensive care units[7] in the world at 46.5 beds per 100,000 people (compared to 9.6 in Greece, 11.6 in France, and 12.6 in Italy).
[15] On 12 January 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed that a novel coronavirus was the cause of a respiratory illness in a cluster of people in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China, which was reported to the WHO on 31 December 2019.
On 10 January 2020, ignoring China's insistence on the lack of evidence for human-to-human transmission, Ministry of Health experts stated that they suspected that SARS-CoV-2 was transmitted among people, and accordingly set up the Coronavirus Scientific Advisory Board.
[16] The ministry subsequently announced that teachers and staff in schools for students with special needs could opt out of in-person teaching if they or their families had a health risk.
[5] With that announcement, more than 80 million people in Turkey started to live under some form of restriction to their movements when trains and public transit came to a halt nationwide.
[note 3][4] At the same time, Turkey started to open drive-through screening clinics, based on the South Korean-pioneered model, which allows testing at no cost, while avoiding nosocomial transmission of SARS-CoV-2.
[4] On 31 March, after consulting with trade unions spearheaded by TÜRK-İŞ and DİSK, the government launched a paycheck protection program that helped small businesses keep employees on their books.
On the same day, the government unveiled further emergency measures, including a moratorium on evictions, a stay on all debt, seizure (except for alimony and child support), and bankruptcy proceedings until 31 December.
[4] On 2 April, the Istanbul Medical Chamber expressed concern about the Ministry of Health's tally, which included only cases confirmed by reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction tests, thereby excluding the ELISAs administered in private hospitals.
[19] Criticizing private hospitals' use of new antigen-testing technology[19] that have much lower sensitivity,[20] the Chamber of Physicians expressed concern over the decentralization of data collection.
[19] On 3 April, citing potential asymptomatic transmission of SARS-CoV-2 by children, the Ministry of Health extended the curfew, which initially applied only to those 65 and older, to people 20 and younger.
[21] On 6 April, the government announced the building of two hospitals at Istanbul Airport that could accommodate 2,000 patients[18] and would specialize in common life-support techniques, such as Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), for people with severe cases of COVID-19.
[21] On 13 April, Erdoğan announced that curfews on weekends would continue but the restrictions were less stringent during the week, and many non-essential businesses, including construction sites remained open.
[22] On 4 May, the Coronavirus Scientific Advisory Board stated that public-health interventions—lockdowns and mask use—had led to major drops in caseloads, reducing the strain on emergency rooms and intensive-care units.
[4] On 1 June, domestic flights resumed and most public spaces opened, including restaurants, swimming pools, beaches, parks, libraries, and museums.
[5] In July, Erdoğan urged a rewrite of Coronavirus Scientific Advisory Board guidelines to discourage reporting asymptomatic people who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2.
[23] On 30 August, mayors of Istanbul and Ankara Ekrem İmamoğlu and Mansur Yavaş said that there was a mismatch between the statistics reported by Ministry of Health and the local data, and accused the national government of covering up the coronavirus resurgence.
[24] On 18 September, as part of statutory measures taken to counter the pandemic's impact on the economy, a presidential decree extended the rule that limits corporations' dividends to 25% of their net profits in 2019.
[30] On 7 December, Pfizer and BioNTech finalized their submission to the Turkish Medicines and Medical Devices Agency (TMA), which had been reviewing data from the clinical trial since October.
Turkey had a very bad tourism season due to the restrictions, but bars and restaurants were allowed to reopen at half-capacity in provinces with lower infection rates.
[18] The Ministry of National Education subsequently announced that teachers and staff in schools for students with special needs are able to opt out of in-person teaching if they or their families had a health risk.
[38] During the pandemic, Turkey provided funds, doctors, medical equipment such as PPE, reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction testing kits, and other assistance to at least 55 countries.
