More than half of cases in Turkey are in Istanbul: Report
ISTANBUL
More than half of the confirmed COVID-19 cases in Turkey were recorded in Istanbul, the country’s largest metropolis with a population of over 16 million, with 108,749 out of a total of 198,284 reported infections, according to a COVID-19 status report prepared by the Health Ministry.
The number of COVID-19 cases has seen a drastic increase in the country’s eastern and southeastern provinces lately, as Turkey approached 200,000 cases by the end of June.
A total of 198,284 confirmed COVID-19 cases were detected in Turkey’s laboratories, with 5,097 of them being resulted in death during the mentioned time period, according to the report prepared in two languages.
More than 105,000 patients were hospitalized due to COVID-19 during the pandemic period, 7,775 of whom were intubated and 98,000 of whom were discharged from hospitals.
Istanbul was followed by the eastern Marmara region with 21,626 cases and the southeast with 16,813 cases.
Health Minister Fahrettin Koca reiterated that the highest number of confirmed cases are seen in the provinces of Istanbul, Ankara, Gaziantep, Konya and Bursa.
He also said no new cases had been seen in the provinces of Burdur and Gümüşhane for two days.
The recovery rate of cases was determined as 86.4 percent and the death rate as 2.57 percent.
The country’s death toll from the disease rose to 5,167, with 17 new fatalities reported over the last 24 hours.
The number of deaths was recorded as 2,687 in Istanbul, 534 in the eastern Marmara region and 490 in the Aegean region.
The increase in the number of cases in the southeastern region in the last seven days has stirred concerns as the virus is in circulation and no significant drops in numbers are being seen.
In Turkey’s tourism destinations such as Antalya, Nevşehir and Muğla, the rate of new cases for the last seven days per 100,000 people was 1.4, 1.3 and 0.7, respectively.
Healthcare professionals also conducted over 49,714 tests for the disease in the past day, raising the total count to over 3.48 million.
