As almost all restrictions imposed due to the coronavirus pandemic have been lifted, the public has one question on its mind: When will the mask made in mass transit be lifted? Sooner than thought, apparently. The number of COVID-19 infections in Turkey fell below the 1,000 mark on Sunday, as the health minister promised to further ease mask restrictions if the numbers remain the same for three consecutive days.

The Health Ministry confirmed 905 new COVID-19 infections, five related deaths and 1,019 recoveries in the last 24 hours. As many as 118,852 tests were conducted. "The day we've been waiting for for so long has come. The number of cases fell below 1,000. The number of deaths is five. Once the number of cases is below 1,000 for three consecutive days, the use of masks will be optional, not mandatory, in public transportation!" Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said on Twitter. To stem the spread of the virus, Turkey has administered more than 147.67 million vaccine doses since it launched an immunization drive in January 2021. More than 57.83 million people have received their first jabs, while over 53.05 million are fully vaccinated.

Turkey lifted its longtime indoor mask mandate last month, except for public transportation and in hospitals.

More than 525.4 million COVID-19 cases and over 6.27 million deaths have been reported in at least 192 countries and regions since December 2019, according to the U.S.-based Johns Hopkins University.

Sunday's figures came about two years after Turkey reported, for the first time, a drop below 1,000 in the number of daily cases, in August 2020. Compared to April, the number of daily cases also decreased by 75%. About two weeks after Turkey reported its first coronavirus case on March 11, 2020, the number of cases escalated to 1,196 and rarely decreased below this number. At the height of the pandemic, it snowballed to more than 110,000 daily cases, before receding to around 2,000 last month. Around the same time, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced that the mask mandate would be entirely scrapped once the numbers drop below 1,000.

Apart from the decline in infections, Turkey also hails a dramatic drop in the number of fatalities, with only 159 people succumbing to the virus this month so far, compared to 738 in April.

Professor Tevfik Özlü, a member of the Health Ministry's Coronavirus Scientific Advisory Board, says that Turkey was at a "far better point" compared to the past, especially in terms of fatalities. "I think we are nearer to a situation with no fatalities too," he told public broadcaster TRT Haber on Monday. Özlü described 1,000 daily cases as "a psychological threshold" that would alleviate people's concerns. "The pandemic appears fully under control now. It is no longer a major public threat. We will see infections decrease more and more in the summer, as more people will be outdoors. It is not entirely unrealistic to say that the pandemic will be over this summer," he stressed.

Özlü said vaccination played an important role in curbing the pandemic, noting that countries with insufficient inoculation rates were seeing a resurgence in pandemic. "Few countries achieved their goals in the vaccination. Turkey did relatively well in vaccination. We have a rate above 50% in terms of people with two doses of vaccines. We also have a large number of people who recovered from the disease and thus, became immune. The omicron variant made this widespread," he underlined.

He still urges the public to exert caution if they are in close proximity to others and have symptoms. "Even if you are outside, the risk is there if people are in close quarters, such as in concert venues, in rallies. You may consider wearing a mask," he said. But he also reassured that the fatality rate of the virus has become very low. "As a matter of fact, fatality rates are now lower than fatality rates from influenza. There is no need to panic. We may always have coronavirus in our lives but it will be an ordinary disease, a simple infection," he said.