Turkey announced 982 new coronavirus cases on Friday, 15 more than yesterday, bringing the total number of cases to 230,873, according to a chart posted on Twitter by Health Minister Fahrettin Koca.
“The cities with the biggest increase in the number of patients in critical condition: İstanbul, Ankara, Konya, Gaziantep, Diyarbakır,” Koca tweeted.
The COVID-19 death toll, meanwhile, increased by 17 to 5,691 in the last 24 hours, the chart indicated.
Beginning Wednesday, the health ministry chart no longer showed the number of intensive care patients and those on ventilators but instead reported the number of patients in critical condition and the percentage of patients among all cases who have developed pneumonia due to the coronavirus.
Today’s chart indicated that the number of patients in critical condition is 582, twenty-one more, 8.8 percent of whom have developed pneumonia.
Since COVID-19 is a respiratory disease, in severe cases it causes pneumonia. According to experts, some 15 percent of coronavirus cases are severe, and nearly 5 percent of patients need ventilators to breathe.
Meanwhile, 996 more people were declared to have recovered on Wednesday, bringing the total number of recoveries to 214,535.
Turkey has conducted 4,800,823 tests so far, with 46,492 more in the last 24 hours.
On average, the country conducts some 56,000 tests per 1 million of population, better than countries like the Netherlands and France but far worse than the UK, the US and Germany.
Turkey reported its first COVID-19 case on March 11. The country eased preventative measures at the start of June, opening shopping malls, cafes, restaurants and mosques.