Turkey to impose four-day curfew from May 16 amid Covid-19

Turkey will impose a four-day partial curfew beginning on Friday midnight in an effort to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus, the country's president said on 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 0800-1400 GMT, 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 $282 million in donations.

As of Monday, Turkey registered a total of 3,841 deaths due to coronavirus whereas nearly 95,780 people have recovered from the disease. Currently, there are 139,771 confirmed cases in the country.

After originating in China last December, the coronavirus 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 numbering more than 4.13 million, while recoveries surpassed 1.42 million, according to figures compiled by the US’ Johns Hopkins University.