Turkey on Friday ordered residents of 31 cities, including Istanbul and Ankara, to stay cloistered in their homes for 48 hours starting at midnight Friday, as part of tough new measures to fight the coronavirus pandemic.
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The Interior Ministry said in a statement that the containment order would remain in effect until midnight Sunday, including in Istanbul, the economic capital, and in the capital Ankara. Details of the measure will be released to the public later, the ministry added.
The 1000 dead bar
Most of the 47,029 cases of coronavirus contamination identified in Turkey were in Istanbul, which has more than 15 million inhabitants. Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said at a press conference on Friday that the pandemic has so far claimed 1,006 lives in Turkey and that 4,747 new cases have been detected. The Covid-19 has also left 98 more dead in the past 24 hours.
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More than 300,000 tests have already been conducted in this country of 83 million inhabitants, according to the latest official statistics. Turkey has thus become one of the countries where the pandemic is spreading the fastest.
