Istanbul: Men playing cards and backgammon in their local coffee shop again, the cinema was being cleaned before screening and the first night bar they served beer and chips on the famous pedestrian street Istanbul.
Turkey has relieved almost all pandemic restrictions on businesses and events starting on Thursday and lifting night hours and Sundays when new infections remain constantly below the recent record level.
“We no longer have patience to stay at home either in a financial and spiritual way,” said 42-year-old gig worker Fatih Aydin.
The restaurant circular interior service, which opened back a few weeks ago, and a wedding no longer had to limit the number of guests but still had to obey the rules of social distance.
Only a hookah shop is still closed.
Concert and festivals can be continued indoors and outdoors but the music must end at midnight even though there are no more curfews.
Limitation of public transportation with passengers and age limits has also been restricted.
Turkish mask mandates outdoors and in public places remain, as elsewhere, many people do not use masks properly.
“We are fed up with this masked life, I think we need to go back to normal life,” said Huseyin Baytas, 24, said.
But the threat still exists.
Turkey gradually relieves restrictions since mid-May after the end of what is called “full locking” from which millions of workers and tourists are excluded.
Partial locking in mid-April was extended to the residence sequence at home which was almost three weeks after the daily case reached a record high of more than 63,000.
Infections and deaths have come down since then but cases have hovered about 7 days around 5,500 per day.
Drive Turkey Vaccination has also collected speed, exceeded 50 million doses given on Thursday.
But only 18% of nearly 84 million Turkish populations have been fully vaccinated with shots by Pfizer-Biontonech and China’s Sinovac.
When thousands of tourists come to Turkish beach from Russia, where there is a surge in infection, fear of the highly contagious Delta Coronavirus variant first identified in abundant India.
Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said this week that 224 variants have been identified so far.
On Wednesday, Koca reduced the waiting time between two vaccine doses of up to four weeks.
He also announced that health workers and people over 50 can choose to get the third dose – amid concerns about the long-term efficacy of Sinovac, especially in dealing with Delta variants.
Deniz Sekkin, a 40-year-old engineer, said he was not ready to impose precautions.
“The danger is not 100%.
I only have the first dose of the vaccine.
There is a Delta variant and the infection number does not fall below 5,000.”