The number of people who have died from the novel coronavirus in Turkey has reached 2,140, increasing by 123, while the country’s confirmed cases grew by 4,674, totaling 90,980, in the last 24 hours, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca announced on Monday.
The total number of people who have recovered stands at 13,430, and 39,703 tests were conducted over the last 24 hours, according to a chart Koca posted on Twitter.
“We should be at least as persistent as the virus,” Koca tweeted. “We will win this war through the self-sacrifice of our health [service] army and our persistence in sticking to measures.”
The chart showed that a total of 673,980 tests have been conducted in Turkey since the first case of coronavirus was confirmed in the country on March 11.
Turkey is among the top 10 countries in the world when it comes to confirmed coronavirus cases, and its toll is increasing by more than 4,000 cases per day. The mortality rate has been much lower here than elsewhere, which has raised eyebrows.
The Turkish Medical Association (TMA) says Turkey’s official coronavirus death statistics do not include cases that strongly indicate COVID-19 but test negative.
Turkey has not implemented a full lockdown, and curfews are imposed in 31 major cities only on the weekends. People aged 65 and above as well as those 20 and below without jobs are prohibited from going outside as part of measures to contain the epidemic.
First seen in the Chinese city of Wuhan, COVID-19 has spread rapidly around the world, infecting over 2,452,437 people worldwide and killing at least 168,784. Some 642,635 people have recovered, according to Worldometers.info.