Turkey to lift weekend curfew imposed to curb the spread of COVID-19 – Reuters

Turkey is to lift weekend curfew imposed to curb the spread of novel coronavirus at midnight, as scheduled. In other headlines, Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and US President Donald Trump have agreed on-call to cooperate in protecting healthcare and economies from coronavirus – Turkish Presidency.

Turkey's COVID-19 cases overtook Iran's on the weekend to become highest in the Middle East.

Reuters reported that an increase of 3,783 cases in the last 24 hours also pushed Turkey's confirmed tally within a few hundred of China, where the novel coronavirus first emerged.

Koca said 121 more people have died, taking the death toll to 1,890. A total of 10,453 people have recovered from coronavirus so far, and the number of tests carried out over the past 24 hours came to 40,520, the minister said.

The Interior Ministry also said it was extending restrictions on travel between 31 cities for a further 15 days starting at midnight on Saturday.

• US coronavirus deaths surpass 40,000, cases over 744,000 – Reuters tally

The lira has been one of the worst EMFX performers YTD. Most of the depreciation is exogenous (COVID-19 and the oil shock). USD strength represents a major problem for one of the most dollar-indebted EM economies. USD/TRY is now consolidating just below the 7.00 handle and a touch below August 2018 highs with 6.55 is a key downside target