Turkey's daily Covid-19 cases, deaths break record again

Photo: AA

Click to read the article in Turkish / Kurdish

The Health Ministry has reported 33,198 more coronavirus infections, including 6,593 symptomatic patients, for the past 24 hours.

As many as 5,245 patients recovered in the last day, bringing the tally to 441,515 while the death toll rose to 15,314 with 211 additions.

Across the country, 201,219 Covid-19 tests were administered, pushing the total to over 20.08 million.

Figures announced by the Health Ministry and the İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality

• Official Covid-19 figures have been disputed by medical organizations, opposition parties and local governments since the start of the outbreak.
• On September 30, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca admitted that Turkey was not including asymptomatic cases in its daily count.
• On November 22, the İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality started announcing daily number of deaths caused by "an infectious disease" in the city, which often exceeded the ministry's death toll for the entire country.
• On November 25, the ministry announced that it started to announce all cases and has been reporting more than 30,000 daily infections since then.
• On November 30, the government imposed new restrictions, including weeknight and weekend curfews all accross the country, to slow down the outbreak.

The number of patients in critical condition now stands at 5,882, though the rate of increase in severe cases is declining, according to Health Minister Fahrettin Koca.

"We must avoid crowds and apply our own restrictions," he said on Twitter.

Table: Health Ministry

The Covid-19 pandemic has claimed nearly 1.54 million lives in 192 countries and regions since last December.

Over 67.78 million cases have been reported worldwide, with more than 43.65 million recoveries, according to figures compiled by the US' Johns Hopkins University.

While the US, India, Brazil and Turkey are the worst-hit countries in terms of daily cases while Europe is in the grip of a devastating second wave of infections.

(EKN/VK)