Ankara, Jan 13 (IANS): Turkey announced that it has decided to further ease its Covid-19 quarantine restrictions and test requirements, while Omicron has become the dominant variant in the country.

The country will abolish the PCR test requirement for screening purposes and for close-contacts of Covid-positive individuals, Xinhua news agency quoted Health Minister Fahrettin Koca as saying.

The test will be performed on people with symptoms, he added.

A fully vaccinated contact of a Covid-19 infected person will not be quarantined and an infected person will not need a PCR test to end seven-day isolation, the Minister said.

The Omicron variant has become dominant among cases of the country, he said, noting that the number of the infected increased four times since last month.

However, the hospitalization has increased only 10 percent, the minister added.

Turkey has so far reported a total of 10,195,676 Covid-19 cases and 84,125 deaths, while 42,573 more people recovered in the last 24 hours.

Till date, about 57.18 million people have received their first doses of the Covid vaccine, while over 52.01 million are fully vaccinated.