Turkey was added to Switzerland’s high-risk quarantine list as of Monday as the country attempts to bring the soaring number of coronavirus cases down.
Travelers from Turkey must be put in a 10-day quarantine upon their arrival in Switzerland.
Switzerland bases its decision to add or remove countries from the list on infection rates.
With 55,149 cases Turkey had the second highest number of daily coronavirus cases in the world following India. Monday also saw the highest number of daily coronavirus deaths in Turkey, which was 341.
In early March Turkey reopened most restaurants for indoor dining and allowed more students to return to school as it rolled back tough coronavirus restrictions in a move that is blamed for the soaring number of the coronavirus cases in the country. Back then, the daily coronavirus cases was around 10,000.
The nation of 84 million has since seen its daily virus infection numbers soar past 50,000 as it battles a third wave that was exacerbated by the rapid spread of the more infectious British variant of the virus.
In the meantime, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca announced on Monday that intensive care units in Turkey’s most densely populated city of İstanbul were 71.4 percent full due to the increasing number of coronavirus patients. Doctors, overwhelmed by the soaring number of infections, warn that they may have to decide who to treat first if the number of cases continues to rise.
Since the official reporting of the first coronavirus case in Turkey on March 11, 2020, the Turkish government has been criticized for poorly handling the crisis, hiding the real figures from society and failing to take effective measures to prevent the spread of the virus.