Turkey’s uphill battle against the coronavirus pandemic took another turn a few days ago as the nation added weekday curfews and expanded weekend restrictions into lockdowns. Professor Mustafa Necmi Ilhan, a member of the Health Ministry Social Sciences Board that recommends COVID-19 measures for the government, says a four-day curfew should be discussed to decrease mobility during the upcoming New Year.

Axar.az reports that New Year celebrations are large-scale events, especially in big cities where people en masse take to the streets for a countdown to the new year. Ilhan says a curfew should be imposed from Dec. 31 through the following weekend.

“We can restrict people from convening on the streets, we can prevent people from meeting at homes for New Year parties. The same curfew was applied in Ramadan Bayram,” he said, referring to the Muslim holiday that was observed in May when coronavirus cases were climbing.

After strict restrictions in the spring, Turkey eased into a normalization process early in the summer. The nation's number of patients steadily decreased but as autumn began, the country started experiencing a new surge.