Turkey Declares Weekend Lockdown After Deaths Top 1,000

(Bloomberg) -- Turkey’s government declared a two-day lockdown in major cities after the country reported 98 new coronavirus fatalities Friday, bringing the death toll from the outbreak to 1,006.

Turks in 31 cities including Istanbul and the capital, Ankara, will not be allowed to go out through April 12, according to a note by the Interior Ministry.

Earlier Friday, authorities said the number of confirmed cases rose 11.2% from Thursday to 47,029. The country screened 30,864 people over the past 24 hours and 4,747 tested positive for the virus, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said in a Twitter post.

This weekend’s lockdown is the most stringent measure that has yet been adopted by Turkey. While authorities have gradually increased restrictions on people’s mobility since the first case was reported a month ago, they had avoided imposing the kind of strict measures seen in other parts of the world as they seek to contain the fallout on the economy.

The number of total tests administered during the first 32 days of the outbreak reached 307,210, Koca said.

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