Daily Covid cases in Turkey increase 40-fold, says health minister

Click to read the article in Turkish

Daily new Covid-19 cases in Turkey have increased as many as 40 times in the past four or five weeks, Minister of Health Fahrettin Koca said after a cabinet meeting late yesterday (July 18).

This is because the latest Covid wave in Europe has reached Turkey, according to the minister.

Hospitalizations and intensive care occupation have not increased as much as the infectivity of the disease, he noted.

"The increase in the number of cases has now risen to 40 times per day. The hospital load, on the other hand, has tripled.  In that sense, we can say that we don't have a serious patient load," he told reporters.

The minister did not disclose the number of cases and deaths for the last week.

The ministry, which has been announcing the numbers weekly rather than daily since June, reported over 117,000 cases in the week between July 4 and 10, which marked a tenfold increase in a month.

Healthcare workers' organizations, including the Turkish Medical Association (TTB), have recommended bringing back some measures, including the indoor mask mandate, in the face of the new wave.

While Koca advised the elderly and people with other diseases to wear a mask indoors, the said a lockdown is not currently on the government's agenda.

"We have medicine, we have vaccines," he remarked.

The minister further noted that the course of Covid is now more similar to that of influenza.

"We have learned to live with Covid by following personal precautions. Will Covid be over? It won't be over. Think of it like influenza. Already, its symptoms have been flu-like lately.

"It mostly progresses with a sore throat, runny nose and fever, and we see muscle pains along with it. It develops like severe influenza." (AS/VK)