While gradually toughening measures against the COVID-19 outbreak in Turkey, the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appears bent on opacity in communicating with the public, a policy it has followed since confirming the country’s first case on March 11.

On March 27, Erdogan announced the toughest restrictions yet, canceling all international flights, banning residents from traveling between cities via public transport and planes unless granted permission by local authorities and closing picnic sites on weekends, among other measures.

In what Erdogan described as the “most important point,” he said, “A decision has been enacted to meticulously implement these measures in all of Turkey’s 30 metropolitan cities, chiefly big cities such as Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir and Kocaeli. I’m not mentioning the others but only the 30 metropolitan cities for now.”

He was referring to 30 provinces whose local administrations with the status of “metropolitan municipalities.” Did Erdogan select Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir and Kocaeli because those four provinces are the worst hit by the outbreak? No official data is publicly available to confidently answer this question in the affirmative. One can only piece together hearsay and a few facts to guesstimate that the outbreak has likely reached serious proportions in Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir and Kocaeli. Deduction is the only option here because Erdogan’s government has been pursuing a policy of opacity in which the distribution of infections has been kept from the public as if a state secret.