Turkey strengthens measures against the pandemic spread with weekend lockdowns

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced Turkey's impose of a total weekend lockdown and a curfew for the rest of the week to curb the spread of the coronavirus after the number of cases exceeded 30,000 on Monday.

Under the new restrictions, the imposed curfew on weekdays from Fridays to Mondays from 9:00 pm. to 5:00 am, and not at all allowed to leave home on weekends. However, few sectors, including supply chains and production are exempted from the measures which began on Tuesday.

Turkey had previously levied a partial weekend lockdown this month but the recent surge of virus cases has forced the government to take stronger actions.

The country registered 31,219 new cases on Monday, totaled to 638,857. The pandemic death toll increased to 13,746 including the latest 188 fatalities on Monday.

Turkey has contracted for 50 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine from China's Sinovac Biotech Ltd. The vaccine is to be administered from December with priority to health workers.