After almost two years with the coronavirus pandemic, Turkey announced the suspension of the mandatory mask rule outdoors for the public. Health Minister Fahrettin Koca announced the decision after a meeting of the ministry’s Coronavirus Scientific Advisory Board in the capital Ankara on Wednesday. He also announced that Hayat Eve Sığar (HES – Life Fits Into Home) codes will no longer be required for citizens who had to show them at the entrance of shopping malls and similar crowded venues. Koca added that the fight against the pandemic would now continue with vaccination.

The decision comes after Turkey broke daily case records in the pandemic last month, only to see the cases drop to December levels. The unprecedented surge brought case levels to above 100,000 daily at times and was tied to the fast-spreading omicron variant. The same variant is also responsible for milder cases that do not require hospitalization for most patients. Eventually, cases started decreasing again this month and were 56,780 as of Wednesday evening.

Experts say mass vaccination is the only way out of pandemic, combined with mass immunity, which can be achieved if more people are infected and recovered or vaccinated.

Since the vaccination program was launched in the country in January 2021, more than 145 million doses have been administered. More than 52 million people have received two doses of vaccines. However, authorities say booster shots, at least one, are required for the vaccinated for full protection against variants. Official figures show more than 27 million people were administered third shots. No data is available on fourth and fifth shots, which are now available for people who were inoculated in the early days of the vaccination program.

The vaccination rate is above 80% in most of the country's 81 provinces, except a few in the southeast. Şanlıurfa has the lowest vaccination rate at around 62%, while Osmaniye in the south has the highest rate, above 89%. Turkey offers China’s inactive CoronaVac vaccine developed by Sinovac, a messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine by Pfizer-BioNTech and lately, Turkovac, another inactive vaccine developed by Turkish scientists at Erciyes University.

Anti-vaxxers and vaccine hesitancy are hurdles for health care workers. Anti-vaxxers, active on social media, have organized several rallies last year but failed to draw public interest in their causes. Vaccine hesitancy, on the other hand, is overcome in most places thanks to mobile crews of the Health Ministry who go door to door to convince citizens and inoculate them on the spot if they accept.

Professor Alper Şener, a member of the Coronavirus Scientific Advisory Board which recommended lifting restrictions, said Turkey was now in a new phase where "personal responsibilities are at the forefront."

His remarks echo government policy that was enforced last summer when it lifted lockdowns and ordered the reopening of most businesses in full after the number of cases dropped. Instead of a centralized, top-down approach, the government first handed the initiative to impose restrictions on local authorities. Gradually, more restrictions were eased while the ministry accelerated the vaccination program with more shipments of vaccines from abroad. Health Minister Fahrettin Koca has already been urging the citizens to take their own measures instead of blanket restrictions, namely wearing masks in places of risk, such as crowded venues, to maintain social distancing and adhere to hygiene rules. He repeated the same warnings on Wednesday evening and urged the citizens to keep their masks with them even if they do not have to wear them outdoors.

Şener told Anadolu Agency (AA) on Thursday that it was still early to say that the pandemic is over. "We still have up to 50,000 cases daily. But the priorities changed in the pandemic. Having a high rate of people at the age of 65 and above vaccinated gives us self-confidence in the fight against the pandemic," he said.

Senior citizens and people with chronic illnesses constitute a majority of fatalities and infections from the coronavirus. They often require hospitalization while younger people, if they have no additional health problems, recover from the infection with mild symptoms similar to a less severe form of the flu.

"We have fewer and fewer patients every day who require intensive care. In the five big cities, we have seen the number of daily cases almost halved compared to previous weeks," Şener added.

The professor said the removal of the HES code requirement may be controversial but it was also open to discussion. "We were seeing people illegally copying healthy people’s HES codes and using them," he noted.

"This is a time for higher personal responsibility. You don’t have to keep your masks on your face but they should be in your pocket absolutely. You should wear masks at places with poor ventilation," he said, listing mass transit vehicles and elevators among them. He said people aged 65 and above should be extra careful and continue wearing masks indoors, regardless of the state of ventilation and urged younger people to keep their masks on while approaching the senior citizens.