Turkey's coronavirus tally nears 300,000 cases with 1,771 new infections

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The Health Ministry has reported 1,771 more cases of the novel coronavirus and 1,060 recoveries.

The country's overall infection count now stands at 299,810, including 264,805 recoveries, according to the ministry's data.

The death toll from the pandemic in Turkey rose to 7,377, with 62 new fatalities reported since yesterday's (September 17) update.

A total of 111,113 more coronavirus tests were conducted over the past 24 hours, raising the total to over 9 million.

New cases and recoveries since after reopening:

The number of patients in critical condition now stands at 1,402, the data showed.

Of those infected, 7.1 percent suffer from pneumonia, according to the ministry figures.

"Our adult bed occupancy rate is 48.5 percent, that is less than 50 percent," Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said at a news conference.

Koca said the rate of adult intensive care occupancy is 66 percent and the rate of occupancy of ventilators is 33 percent. In general there are no serious problems about the occupancy rate in hospitals across Turkey, he added.

The minister pointed out that the number of patients in intensive care services, those in critical conditions and the rate of cases resulting in a fatality is below the world's average.

Efforts to keep the number of tests high, identifying and isolating contacts, and early treatment of the patients have been very effective, according to Koca.

Across the world, Covid-19 has claimed at least 947,500 lives in 188 countries and regions since last December. The US, India, Brazil, and Russia are currently the worst-hit countries.

More than 30.25 million cases have been reported worldwide, with recoveries exceeding 20.57 million, according to figures compiled by the US' Johns Hopkins University.

Daily fatalities, cases, recoveries and tests since the beginning of the epidemic:

(EKN/VK)