A celebrated custom unique to Turkey may be the next source of new coronavirus cases. Despite warnings and fines, street gatherings for ceremonies to send off youth to military service continue unabated, concerning health authorities.

The ceremonies involve a large crowd of people, usually youth, converging on main streets to form convoys. Convoys disrupting traffic then head to bus stations to see off conscripts. Occasionally, the crowds engage in dancing in the streets in dangerously close quarters, despite the ongoing threat of the pandemic. Photos and videos published online and by media outlets show most people ditching masks and social distancing rules during the informal ceremonies.

"We see more news in the media about send-off ceremonies without compliance with measures against COVID-19. Those people are not doing a favor to their friends. What kind of friend wants his friend to start his military service with a positive diagnosis (of COVID-19)," Health Minister Fahrettin Koca tweeted on Tuesday.

Turkey started enforcing mask requirements earlier this month, and police patrol the streets to warn and fine those not wearing masks. Yet, TVs, newspapers and social media are awash with photos of people ignoring the rule and not keeping their distance.

Turkey recorded 1,293 new cases and 16 deaths in the 24 hours leading into Tuesday. With this latest update, the death toll in Turkey from the pandemic rose to 5,131. The total number of COVID-19 cases in Turkey, meanwhile, has reached 199,906. The number of recovered patients reached 173,111 with 1,302 additions in the past 24 hours. "We are not being decisive or careful enough in reducing the number of cases," Koca tweeted, as the total caseload continues to rise at a rate above 1,000 since June 12. Health care professionals have conducted over 50,000 tests for the disease since Monday, raising the total count to over 3.38 million.

Professor İlhami Çelik, a member of the Health Ministry’s Coronavirus Science Board tasked with enforcing measures against the pandemic, says Turkey, like the rest of the world, has a long way to go before a vaccine is developed against the coronavirus. "Estimated time for a vaccine is 2022, and we can only hope the pandemic will end by that time," he said at an event about the pandemic on Tuesday. "Based on my projections, cases would drop this summer and indeed, they did. Yet, if we continued quarantine measures, we’d probably have zero cases by now. However, we are living in a dynamic society. You need to work and produce for a living. You can’t enforce lockdowns forever," he said.

Çelik said that although the Health Ministry managed to control the outbreak, people acting irresponsibly spread the virus further, referring to street gatherings, wedding parties, funerals and other crowded events without measures. For instance, 19 relatives of a couple are under quarantine in western Turkey after attending the funeral of a woman whose husband later tested positive for the coronavirus. Authorities decided to quarantine the homes of the funeralgoers in the Kula district of the Manisa province as of Wednesday following the funeral on Tuesday during which the husband of the woman, who died of heart disease, fell ill and was hospitalized. The man later tested positive for the coronavirus, and the Health Ministry’s contact tracing teams tracking down COVID-19 patients later located the funeralgoers.

Professor Mustafa Necmi Ilhan, a member of Social Sciences Board of the Health Ministry established to measure the impact of the coronavirus on society, said the nation can go back to its life before pandemic only by complying with rules. "We can do whatever we were able to before March 11 if we follow the rules," Ilhan told Demirören News Agency (DHA) on Wednesday, referring to the date of the first case in Turkey. "We can go out, shop and meet our friends as long as we remember the rules. This will help both our mental health and will prevent infections," he said. "We still have daily cases above 1,000, and this naturally worries and scares people. Some people never step out of their homes. They are right, but it is better to go out at times, for fresh air and exercise," he said. Turkey started gradually lifting restrictions last month, reopening businesses and ending weekend curfews in big cities. Wedding halls and internet cafes were the latest venues allowed to reopen as of Wednesday, amid strict measures to prevent more infections.

Ilhan said a new risk for Turkey is people who completely ignore the coronavirus. "Some people believe in conspiracy theories that say the coronavirus is ‘designed in a lab’ and would not infect everyone. They don’t believe in the existence of a virus or believe that the virus lost its impact; thus, they don’t care about wearing a mask or being cautious about hygiene. They are among the fatalities from the coronavirus in Turkey," Ilhan said.