ANKARA (Reuters) – The outbreak of coronavirus cases in Ankara is pushing hospitals to the limit and the Turkish government will have to impose a new blockade on the virus, according to doctors from the Turkish capital.
The city is now the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak in Turkey, the government said this week, and the government says there is still no closure plan, officials say privately that additional action would soon be needed.
“Ankara has Wuhan,” said geriatrics professor Mustafa Cankurtaran of Ankara’s School of Medicine, referring to the Chinese city where the new coronavirus first appeared.
“A lock will be imposed for 10 to 14 days. Health capacity can be exceeded,” he tweeted Wednesday, urging the government to open all medical centers, adding personal fitness units.
Two officials told Reuters that the number of cases in Ankara was developing faster than expected and that existing measures, which added masking and social estating, were not delivering the desired results.
“Positive cases are high enough to cause discomfort now, and everyone has begun to see new cases in their close circles,” said one official, who spoke under anonymity.
“If no further action is taken, it turns out it will be more difficult to avoid new problems,” the official added, adding that some “city-based” measures could be taken.
“Second COUNCIL”
Health Minister Fahrettin Koca describing a “second peak” of COVID-19 instances in Turkey, said the number of active instances in Ankara this week twice as high in Istanbul, whose population is 3 times the length of the capital.
Ankara Governor Vasip Sahin told reporters on Friday that he expected the upward trend in some cases would not require stricter measures such as a curfew.
“Curfew is a delicate situation, we don’t need to impose it. We think it’s imaginable to oppose this trend in our city without those restrictions,” Sahin said.
However, doctors in Ankara and other physical activities are exhausted, according to the Turkish Association of Physicians (TTB).
A doctor treating COVID-19 told Reuters that there were more than 1,000 cases at his hospital in Ankara, which is not far from the total national officer of about 1,600. Patients were treated in the hallways and doctors died.
“Ankara is in serious trouble, ” said the doctor. ” They want to impose restrictions to be outside. “
Asked about the figures reported through the doctor, the Turkish Ministry of Health kept its figures.
Deaths across the country have reached their point since mid-May, when the locks were in place, with 49 deaths reported on Thursday.
Over the weekend, the mayors of Istanbul and Ankara accused the government of downplaying the scale of the pandemic and bringing up reports.
(Editing through Dominic Evans, William Maclean)
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