And by evening the extension is no longer merely rumour. Posts on Facebook’s North Cyprus expats group are reporting an extension and intensification of the country wide lockdown beginning at midnight. Only available links appear to be in Turkish and we are not the only group members for whom this renders the information unreadable. Confusingly, the announcement begins by saying that a curfew will be declared. This corresponds to comments made by other posters and leads to some debate over whether curfew is what is meant as there seems no intention to relate allowable activity to a particular time of day. The answer is most probably that there is an awkward translation and that the restrictions involved are not ones of time. Helpfully someone has used Google Translate for an English version of the announcement, though the result, as usual, provides as much entertainment as edification.
The gist is actually more clear than is often the case with Google Translate, though there is some merriment over visiting dusting, which would seem to refer to cleaning people, and training is apparently a reference to outdoor physical activity.
So the upshot is that the lockdown which was to have ended Friday, will not do so but will, rather, be extended for 14 days, beginning at midnight tonight rather than on Friday and involving stricter injunctions about necessary activity and social distancing. And violations are likely to lead to a fine of 7000 TL (about €1000) or imprisonment.
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