ISTANBUL — Men are playing cards and backgammon at their local coffeehouses again, movie theaters are being cleaned before their first evening screening and bars are serving beer and chips in Istanbul\u2019s famous pedestrian avenue.<\/p>\n
Turkey has eased nearly all pandemic restrictions on businesses and events starting Thursday, and lifted nighttime and Sunday curfews as new infections remain steadily below recent record high levels.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe no longer have the patience to stay at home in both the financial and the spiritual way,\u201d 42-year-old gig worker Fatih Aydin said.<\/p>\n
An interior ministry circular said restaurants, which re-opened weeks ago, and wedding parties no longer have to limit the number of guests but must still abide by social distancing rules. Only hookah shops are still closed.<\/p>\n
Concerts and festivals can go ahead indoors and outdoors but music must end by midnight even though there is no longer a curfew. Restrictions on public transport with passenger and age limits have also been curtailed.<\/p>\n
Turkey\u2019s mask mandate outdoors and in public places remains, though, like elsewhere, many people are not using masks correctly. \u201cWe are sick of this masked life, I think we need to get back to normal life,\u201d Huseyin Baytas, 24, said.<\/p>\n
But the threat remains. Turkey has been gradually easing restrictions since mid-May after the end of a so-called \u201cfull lockdown\u201d from which millions of workers and tourists were exempt. A partial lockdown in mid-April was extended to a nearly three-week stay-at-home order after daily cases hit a record high of more than 63,000.<\/p>\n
Infections and deaths have dropped since then but cases have been hovering around a 7-day average of about 5,500 per day. Turkey\u2019s vaccination drive has also gathered speed, surpassing 50 million doses administered as of Thursday. But only 18% of Turkey\u2019s nearly 84 million population has been fully vaccinated with shots by Pfizer-BioNTech and China’s Sinovac.<\/p>\n
As thousands of tourists come to Turkey\u2019s shores from Russia, where there’s been an infection surge, fears of the highly-infectious delta coronavirus variant first identified in India abound. Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said this week that 224 cases of the variant had been identified so far.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Koca reduced the waiting time between two vaccine doses to four weeks. He also announced that health-care workers and people aged over 50 could choose to get a third dose \u2014 amid worries on Sinovac\u2019s long-term efficacy, especially in dealing with the delta variant.<\/p>\n
Deniz Seckin, a 40-year-old engineer, said she\u2019s not ready to drop precautions. \u201cThe danger is not 100% over. I\u2019ve only had my first dose of the vaccine. There is the delta variant and infection numbers are not dropping below 5,000.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Follow all of AP\u2019s pandemic coverage at https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/coronavirus-pandemic, https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/coronavirus-vaccine and https:\/\/apnews.com\/UnderstandingtheOutbreak<\/p>\n