Turkey begins announcing COVID-19 cases on provincial basis

ANKARA

Turkey’s health minister on Monday announced the number of COVID-19 cases on a provincial basis between Feb. 8-14 as part of a new weekly initiative.

“From now on, we will announce the number of cases for [the past] seven days at the beginning of each week,” Fahrettin Koca said on Twitter.

The number of cases per 100,000 people is 60.19 in Istanbul, 35.49 in the capital Ankara and 44.39 in western Izmir province.

As of Monday, Turkey confirmed more than 2.59 million cases, 27,562 fatalities, and over 2.48 million recoveries.

Turkey began a mass COVID-19 vaccination campaign on Jan. 14 starting with health care workers along with top officials to encourage public confidence in the vaccines.

Since early December, Turkey has also been implementing curfews on nights and weekends to curb the spread of the virus.

The pandemic has so far claimed more than 2.4 million lives in 192 countries and regions since emerging in December 2019, according to US-based Johns Hopkins University. More than 109.06 million cases and over 61.27 million recoveries have been reported worldwide.