Ministry unveils weekly COVID data

ANKARA 

A total of 7,556 COVID-19 cases were reported in Turkey between June 6 and 12, the Health Ministry said in its weekly coronavirus statistics. 

Health Minister Fahrettin Koca had previously announced that the ministry would stop publishing daily statistics after the number of cases started to decline.

According to the ministry’s data, 20 COVID-19 patients lost their lives, while more than 7,241 people recovered from the infection between June 6 and 12.

Since the first COVID-19 case was reported in March 2020, the coronavirus has infected more than 15 million people and killed nearly 100,000.

The country saw a sharp spike in the number of COVID-19 cases, which climbed over 110,000 in February this year. The daily infections started to decline in the following months, falling below 60,000 in March and further down to 10,000 after April.

The ministry also reported that to date nearly 148 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccines have been administered.

More than 53 million people – or 85.5 percent of the population aged over 18 – have been double jabbed, while some 58 million people – 93 percent of the adult population – have received at least one dose of the jab.

Some 28 million have been given a third dose of the vaccine.

Turkey rolled out its inoculation drive in January last year starting with healthcare workers and the elderly. It later gradually widened the scope of the vaccination program to cover other age groups.

The country launched the vaccinations with the jab developed by the Chinese company Sinovac and then added Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to its arsenal of vaccines. In December 2021, Turkey rolled out its domestically developed vaccine Turkovac.