Nonpharmaceutical interventions in Turkey and worldwide during COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) are actions apart from getting vaccinated and medications, in order to promote deceleration of the spread of illness among people and communities during pandemic. In this article, we aim to examine NPIs applied in Turkey and worldwide due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of the NPIs such as isolation, quarantine, and contact tracing were maintained with updates of the Ministry of Health guidelines in Turkey. Some NPIs including travel and partial or full curfew mobilization restrictions were set in accordance with the various periods by the number of cases. Periods of restrictions at autumn 2021 to summer 2022 are national partial curfews, national extended curfews, local decision-making phase, revised local decisionmaking phase, partial lockdown, full lockdown and gradual normalization. Mitigation and suppression have been implemented in Turkey with restrictions of varying severity throughout the course of the epidemic. It is seen that the restrictions implemented in Turkey contributed to the flattening of the epidemic curve.Even some countries mainly applied the suppression method, and others applied the mitigation method, in general it is seen that similar methods were applied with different weights. Examples of different countries demonstrated that NPIs are effective for flattening epidemic curve. NPI have been the main instrument for a year and a half from the beginning of the epidemic to mid-2021 in Turkey as well as worldwide.

Effects of Restriction Measures on Morbidity and Mortality Implemented During Covid-19 Pandemic in Turkey: A Research Through National Data Including One Year

“…Parallel to the course of the epidemic, the scope of restriction measures in Turkey, as well as in the whole world, has undergone various changes over time. Depending on these changes, the periods of restriction measures were named with different names [13,19,20].…”

“…The next period continued with some revisions to the measures (revised local decision-making phase). Later, "partial lockdown" was declared on April 14, and "full lockdown" was announced on April 29 [2,13,19].…”

“…We have defined restriction periods according to implementations of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Turkey [2]. For restriction measures periods up to 1 June 2021, in naming these restriction periods, we used the officially announced names and the names in a review article for restriction practices in Turkey [2,13].…”

“…The implementation dates of restriction periods are "18.11.2020-30.11.2020" for the "national partial curfews", "01.12.2020-28.02.2021" for the "national extended curfews", "01.03.2021-29.03.2021" for the "local decision-making phase", "30.03.2021-13.04.2021" for the "revised local decision-making phase", "14.04.2021-28.04.2021" for the "partial lockdown", "29.04.2021-16.05.2021" for the "full lockdown", "17.05.2021-31.05.2021" for the "gradual normalization" [2,13].…”

“…Travel restrictions, limitation of the gathering of people, closure of primary schools, closure of universities, rules related to general social distance, shutting down public spaces such as cafes, restaurants, bars, shopping malls, and curfew are examples of implementation of restriction measures [11,12]. Various restriction periods have occurred in Turkey throughout the periods including different restrictions of movement practices [2,13]. Monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of restriction measurements will contribute to more effective management of the pandemic.…”