The latest statistics from the Health Ministry showed 226,532 people tested positive for the coronavirus in the week between July 11 and July 17, while another 96 people died. Figures released late Wednesday indicate a further surge in the pandemic, which promises to get worse, because the government doesn’t believe in mask mandates or social distancing measurers. According to Izmir health officials, the positivity rate in PCR tests rose to 50% last week. Turkey faces the threat of a complete collapse in the health care system in the winter.
Currently, none of the previous tight restrictions, from social distancing to mandatory polymerase chain reaction tests (PCR), exist, while hospitals are the only venues where the public is required to wear protective masks.
Still, experts warn that the risk lingers for people with chronic illnesses and elderly citizens, advising them to take self-protection measures, including wearing protective masks. Health authorities earlier announced that most hospitalizations and fatalities were among senior citizens and people suffering from other diseases.
If private health authorities are to be believed, the actual number of cases could be 10-40 times, yes forty, times higher than official stats, simply because hospitals are explicitly ordered not to conduct PCR tests. Such negligence frees the Health Ministry from contact tracing and recording cases.
Turkey will not go under a new lockdown or similar restrictions, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said after a Cabinet meeting, amid a dramatic climb in coronavirus cases, as he pointed out that they already have vaccines and drug treatments widely available.
“We know how we can live with COVID-19 by complying with measures. We all know now when and where we should wear our masks. So, there won’t be a new lockdown or a similar situation. We have vaccines, we have drugs and will continue with existing measures,” he told reporters in the capital Ankara after a Cabinet meeting on Monday.
Koca is mouthing the official line that Covid-19 is not a public health hazard, simply because Turkey needs every penny foreign and domestic tourists spend to avoid a terrible FX crunch and recession.
It stands to reason the Ministry of Health will play dead until October, when tourist leave. By then, it will probably be too late to fend off a nationwide epidemic which can kill business and overburden the health system.
To exacerbate matters, several citizens interviewed by PATurkey and social media chatter indicate that refreshment vaccines are scorned, because “ a new vaccine specifically designed for Omicron” will be available by October. While this may be true, by then it will be too late. Turkey will enter the winter flu season with only a small percentage of her population freshly vaccinated against a terribly infectious virus, which may mutate further in the interim.
Delaying public health precautions essentially dooms the economy to a recession cause by labor shortages and the health system to collapse.
Follow our English language YouTube videos @ REAL TURKEY: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKpFJB4GFiNkhmpVZQ_d9Rg
And content at Twitter: @AtillaEng
Facebook: Real Turkey Channel: https://www.facebook.com/realturkeychannel/