Coronavirus: Hagia Sophia prayers lead to surge in infections

Up to 3000 people are likely to have been infected during the first prayers at Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia last month.

Islamic prayers at Hagia Sophia last month. Picture: AFP

Doctors are warning that new cases of COVID-19 in Turkey are rising far faster than official figures suggest, with up to 3000 people likely to have been infected during the first prayers at the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque last month.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that 350,000 people had descended on Istanbul for the event on July 24, which marked the conversion of the historic building back into a mosque after 86 years as a museum.

Social distancing measures were in place inside the building and the immediate surrounding area, but beyond the police barricades people were closely packed in the streets.

At least four officials from Mr Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AK), who were among 500 people invited inside the mosque, have since been diagnosed with the virus. They include Ahmet Akay, the parliamentary deputy for the city of Sanliurfa, who had shared a video of himself inside the building while not wearing a mask. He was also photographed close to Ali Erbas, head of the state agency for religious affairs, who led the prayers. Mr Erdogan was in the first row of worshippers.

Fatih Municipality workers disinfect the interior of Hagia Sophia mosque after the night prayer in Istanbul. Picture: AFP

Sarp Uner, a professor of public health, has estimated that up to 3000 people are likely to have been infected at the event, based on current infection rates and the likelihood of transmission.

He also warned that infections are likely to increase after many Turks travelled to the coast for the Eid holidays around the start of this month.

“I believe that the gathering will increase the cases in Istanbul … it is certain that more difficult days await us,” Professor Uner told the Anka news agency.

Figures from Turkey’s health ministry had shown new daily cases remaining below 1000 throughout July, but starting to rise again over the past two weeks. The latest figures on Sunday showed 1172 new cases.

The Ankara chamber of medicine has disputed the figures, claiming that occupancy rates in the capital’s coronavirus wards had reached 100 per cent and that at least 1000 new cases were being diagnosed each day in that province alone.

The director of health in the Anatolian province of Konya, and the mayor of the southern city of Adiyaman, have warned their hospitals could be overwhelmed by patients should the current rate of infections continue. Health Minister Fahrettin Koca has dismissed the allegations as “unfounded”.

The government does not release the breakdown of cases by province, and since July 29 has stopped publishing the number of patients in intensive care.

Turkey began relaxing its lockdown in early June, following a series of total curfews over weekends and national and religious holidays.

The country was particularly keen to kickstart its tourism industry, which accounts for about 10 per cent of its GDP.

It reopened for foreign tourists on July 1, but has been excluded from the EU’s “green list” of countries where the infection rates are deemed to be low enough for non-essential travel, without the need for quarantining on return.

Tourist numbers, which had hit a high of nearly 52 million in 2019, fell by 75 per cent in the first six months of this year.

The Times