'Minister's statement suggests Turkey didn't report 275,000 Covid-19 cases in September'

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Turkey might not have reported more than 81,000 Covid-19 cases in April and 275,000 cases in September, according to the rate of positive tests announced by Minister of Health Fahrettin Koca, the Turkish Medical Association (TTB) has said.

"Our primary problem in the pandemic period is the need for correct and reliable data," the TTB Monitoring Committee said in its seventh monthly report about the pandemic.

"We have always expressed doubts and criticism regarding the outbreak management, however, these have become more visible," the TTB said, noting that the minister admitted at the start of the month that Turkey was not reporting asymptomatic cases.

CLICK - Turkey admits not announcing number of all Covid-19 cases 

While Koca said the 20 percent of the PCR tests were positive in April, it was 11.3 percent according to the official figures, the association underlined.

"If the positive PCR test rate was 20 percent in April, there were 188,243 confirmed cases. In this case, 81,570 cases were reported neither to the public nor the World Health Organization.

"The number of tests carried out in September was 3,241,769. If the positivity rate was 10 percent in September, 324,177 confirmed cases should have been recorded.

"However, the Ministry of Health reported 48,530 cases under the name of 'patients'; 275,647 confirmed cases were reported neither to the public nor the World Health Organization."

The second most important issue is the reopening of schools, according to the association.

"Inequalities between schools should be taken into account when making plans for opening schools. The physical conditions of schools, number of staff members, number of students, the capacity of classrooms and distance learning infrastructures should be reviewed. The situation of the families should also be taken into account," it said.

"Current information shows that a strong contact tracing system and sufficient test capacity for those with symptoms and those who contacted them is important for safely opening the schools," it added.

Seasonal danger: "The perfect storm"

"Our third basic problem in the pandemic period is that we are unprepared against the perfect storm that will occur with the addition of influenza and pneumococcal pneumonia to Covid-19 with regards to the current season," the association further noted.

"Symptoms and findings of Covid-19 are similar to that of seasonal influenza/influenza," the TTB said, adding that "If two diseases are seen together in the same person, the immune system will be further weakened; when bacterial (pneumococcal) pneumonia is added to it, the picture known as the perfect storm may cause the disease to result irreversibly."

The association made the following recommendations to slow down the spread of the virus:

Everyone who has an income under the poverty line should be provided with free masks, cleaning and hygiene supplies.

The state should pay half of the gas and electricity bills and the total amount of the water bills of everyone who has an income under the poverty line.

Working times for those who are not able to work at home should be reduced by half and the intensity of public transport use should be reduced. (AS/VK)