Transmission rate below 1 in Turkey, but measures should continue: Experts

The members of the Health Ministry's Coronavirus Science Board have announced that the rate of transmission up to 5 in the world has fallen below 1 in Turkey, while stressing on the necessity to carry on with the measures.
"Staying at home, following the social distancing rule, wearing a protective mask and abiding by the other measures have reduced the transmission rate. I can tell you now this figure will drop to below 1," Ateş Kara, a pediatric infectious diseases specialist and member of the Scientific Board, told Hürriyet.
Turkey has initiated a partial normalization process as the country's fight against the coronavirus pandemic has proven effective and a decline in the number of new infections and deaths is reflected in the figures.
Following the success in the statistics, barbers, hairdressers, shopping malls and some stores opened on May 11 as part of the first phase of the process.
"If the rate was above 1, then the number of the new cases would increase and the spread of the virus would continue," Kara said.
"At the beginning of the pandemic, one individual spread the virus to five people all around the world. When we closed schools, the rate [in Turkey] was down to 3. When the elderly above 65, children and teenagers under 20 stayed home, it dropped to 2," he noted explaining correlation between the country's measures and the transmission rate.
Mehmet Ceyhan, another infection expert and Science Board member, said that the transmission rate of 1.1 means that the number of cases started to increase even if it is a slight increase, and that this increase is also happening in Germany.
"They [Germany] began to step back from normal life after a small increase. [However] in Turkey, as the rate started to drop below 1,...