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Turkey says virus outbreak at peak as government weighs easing restrictions

The country’s health minister credits new therapies and contact tracing for a recent decline in new cases, but warns it is still too soon to loosen restrictions on mobility to mitigate the outbreak.
Nurses take care of a patient suffering from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at an intensive care unit of the Medicana International Hospital in Istanbul, Turkey, April 14, 2020. Picture taken April 14, 2020. REUTERS/Umit Bektas - RC2V4G9L6RFN

ISTANBUL — Turkey’s coronavirus outbreak has reached its peak, with more than 120,000 cases, and the country is now seeing an improvement in “every indicator,” in part due to innovative drug therapies and extensive contact tracing, the health minister said

But analysts sounded a warning that the nascent improvement could prompt the government to move too quickly to ease social distancing measures and risk another spike in the contagion.

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