As Turkey has been announcing stable and then decreasing numbers of COVID-19 cases, an opinion poll reported significantly low trust in the official figures among the public, with 76.8 percent of participants stating that they do not believe that cases and deaths are being accurately reported, according to the T24 news website.
The poll aimed to identify the social, economic and political impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and was conducted by the Eurasia Public Opinion Poll Center (AKAM).
The results also showed that 67.9 percent found the government’s financial support programs insufficient and that only 9.8 percent said they could maintain their finances for more than two months in the event of a general curfew.
Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca has been personally announcing the country’s COVID-19 statistics, posting charts on his Twitter account on a daily basis.
Sunday’s chart put the total number of cases at 126,045, with a death toll of 3,397.
Turkey recorded the first COVID-19 case on March 11.
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 weekends. People aged 65 and over as well as those 20 and under are prohibited from going outside as part of measures to contain the epidemic.
The country extended restrictions put in place in early April on entry and exit from 31 cities for another day until President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan reviews the measures.
First seen in the Chinese city of Wuhan, COVID-19 has spread rapidly around the world, infecting some 3.6 million people worldwide and killing nearly 250,000. A total of 1,169,191 people have recovered, according to Worldometers.info.