'Turkey still underreports Covid-19 cases despite change in reporting'

Photo: (DEVA Party/Twitter)

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Although the Ministry of Health announced on last week that it had started reporting all cases rather than excluding asymptomatic ones, its figures are still not accurate, according to Turkish Medical Association (TTB) Chair Prof. Şebnem Korur-Fincancı.

Test figures suggest that the real number is twice as many as what the ministry announces, she told a joint press conference with Democracy and Progress (DEVA) Party Chair Ali Babacan yesterday (December 1).

She said that the positivity rate of Covid-19 tests increased to 30 percent in November, citing information reaching the association, which meant that the number of daily cases should be around 60,000 whereas the ministry has been announcing about 30,000 daily cases over the past week.

The ministry reported 180,312 tests and 30,110 cases yesterday.

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The TTB has disputed the ministry's figures since the start of the outbreak while Minister of Health Fahrettin Koca had to admit in late September that Turkey was excluding asymptomatic infections from its daily count.

When asked about her opinion on the recent measures announced by the president, which include weeknight curfews and weekend lockdowns, Korur-Fincancı said "no measures were sufficient" as emergency services are being converted to intensive care units.

The government is rather "managing the perception than managing the pandemic," she said, recalling that the association advised a full lockdown of two to four weeks.

The conference was held after a meeting between medical organizations' representatives and Babacan, the country's former economy chief who quit the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) last year.

"It was a must that professional organizations where all of our health workers are represented should have been at the center of the process and in the decision-making structure," Babacan said at the press conference.

He criticized the government for a polarizing approach to the pandemic and said health organizations and other parties should not be viewed as "friends or enemies."

President and Justice and Development Party (AKP) Chair Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called Korur-Fincancı "a terrorist" following her election as the TTB Chair in early October. 

Devlet Bahçeli, an ally of Erdoğan and the chair of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), called on the government to shut down the TTB in September for causing panic among people by questioning the accuracy of the official figures regarding the pandemic. (DŞ/VK)