Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan advised Turkish citizens on Wednesday not to leave home unless necessary for three weeks and to minimise social contact until the threat of coronavirus recedes, but did not instruct people to stay away from work.
The president said the government has mobilized all resources and will leave no stone unturned in efforts to eliminate the coronavirus threat as soon as possible.
In his first address press conference on the COVID-19 outbreak, Erdoğan emphasized that Turkey closely monitored the global outbreak since its start and implemented swift and timely preventive measures.
"None of our citizens must leave their homes or get in contact with anyone, unless absolutely necessary, until the threat disappears," Erdoğan said in a speech after a special meeting in Ankara to tackle the coronavirus outbreak.
"Our citizens who are going to their offices should directly return to their homes at the end of the business day," he said in a statement.
He said the government will distribute protective masks and cologne, which has natural disinfectant properties, to citizens above 65 years of age in Istanbul and Ankara.
Erdoğan added that Turkey was making rapid efforts to develop a vaccine and medicine for COVID-19.
"Such outbreaks have had severe consequences around the world, and have even been the triggers for major political, social, and economic transformations," he said.
"We are entering a new era, one in which we are likely to see radical changes in the global economic, political, and social order."
The Turkish president said the situation being witnessed in Western countries had disproved their claims of having transferred basic public health care to the private sector.
He said it showed those countries had actually abandoned the essential services and left their citizens vulnerable.
Turkey was the last among major world economies to report coronavirus cases. As of Wednesday, there were 98 confirmed cases in the country and a fatality due to COVID-19.
The virus emerged in Wuhan, China, last December, and has spread to at least 164 countries and territories around the globe, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
WHO has declared the disease a pandemic and its data showed there were over 194,000 confirmed cases and nearly 7,900 deaths around the world by Wednesday evening.
COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, is not fatal in all cases and a vast majority of patients do fully recover.
