Turkey’s relative success in its fight against the coronavirus pandemic continues to receive acclaim worldwide as the worst is nearly behind it.
“TURKEY’S STRATEGY HAS WORKED”
The latest appraisal came Thursday in Britain’s prominent financial magazine The Economist as an article underlined that “it has handled the pandemic better than many” of its European and American allies.
Giving examples of the Turkish government’s precautions, it said “rather than place the whole economy in a coma, the authorities ordered the young and the elderly to stay at home and asked everyone else, aside from those in consumer-facing businesses, to show up for work.”
Adding that the biggest Turkish cities were “placed under a blanket curfew” on weekends and holidays, the country’s “strategy seems to have worked.”
Turkey resumed domestic flights on June 1, and cafes, restaurants, beaches and parks reopened, but children and people 65 and over are still not allowed outdoors for more than a few hours a week, the article said.
“TURKEY HAS BUILT A NETWORK OF HOSPITALS”
“The strategy seems to have worked. The most vulnerable escaped the worst of the pandemic, while those infected, mostly working-age adults, generally recovered.”
The daily said Turkey’s death toll is low despite a high number of cases, and “new cases have plateaued at around 1,000 a day since mid-May, down from a high of over 5,000 a month earlier.” “Deaths have never topped more than 127 in a single day,” it underlined.
It said Turkey has reached roughly the same testing rate as France and it has got a death rate “ten times lower than Britain’s.” “Among OECD countries, only Mexico and Colombia have a lower proportion of people aged 65 and over than Turkey does. Few elderly Turks live in nursing homes, which became breeding grounds for the virus in Europe and America.”
“Turkey’s rose to the challenge. Over the past couple of decades, Mr. Erdogan and his governments have poured tens of billions of dollars into health care, most recently by building a network of hospitals the size of international airports.”
