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Türkiye’s Fight Against COVID-19 Pandemic

First, there has been a single and powerful authority that manages the process,
makes the final decisions and monitors the implementation instructions it
has given. The Presidency has always coordinated the ministries in terms
of the implementations with the support of not only the President himself,
but also with the support of the Vice President and other units, and has
been able to immediately handle and fix the shortcomings and deficiencies.
Thanks to this, the main authority of decision-making in the response to
the pandemic has been determined and uncertainties have been eliminated
immediately.

The second advantage of having the Presidential System in the response
process is that the ministers are externally appointed, fully administrative and
implementation oriented, fully committed to the President and experts in
their fields. The fact that the ministers are experts in their fields and do not
tend to act with different political considerations has contributed to the rapid
and effective execution of the process.

To summarize the management of the response, we can say that the
President and the Presidency hold the highest power, the Scientific Board
acts as a unit of evaluation and recommendations, the Ministry of Health
chairs the Scientific Board and develops evaluations and recommendations,
follows the treatment processes, medication and vaccination studies, and lastly,
shares the developments and data on patients with the general public. Issues
such as patient identification, treatment, collection and interpretation of post-
treatment data, management of hospitals, follow-up of laboratory studies, the
course of the disease at national and international level are carried out by the
Ministry of Health.

Other ministries and institutions have been tasked with implementing the
works commanded by the Presidency or proposed by the Scientific Board.
The administrative measures covering the social distance and public order
strategies have been implemented primarily by the Ministry of Interior and
other relevant ministries and institutions. Operating the supply chain and the
implementation of economic measures have been mainly coordinated by the
Ministry of Finance and Treasury.

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