Turkey administered more than 28.3M vaccine shots

By Dilan Pamuk, Merve Aydogan and Ahmet Gencturk

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey has administered over 28.38 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines since the launch of a mass vaccination campaign on Jan. 14, according to official figures.

As of Wednesday, more than 16.24 million people have received their first doses, while over 12.13 million have been fully vaccinated, the Health Ministry's count shows.

The ministry also confirmed 8,728 new coronavirus cases, including 681 symptomatic patients, across the country in the last 24 hours.

Turkey's overall case tally is now over 5.21 million, while the nationwide death toll has reached 46,787 with 166 new fatalities over the past day.

As many as 12,205 more patients won the battle against the virus, raising the total number of recoveries past 5.05 million.

Over 53 million coronavirus tests have been done to date.

The latest figures put the number of COVID-19 patients in critical condition at 1,561.

Turkey started a gradual normalization process on May 17 after a 17-day lockdown that significantly brought infections in the country down.

Until June 1, the country is enforcing weeknight curfews from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m., while weekends are under full lockdown.

Since December 2019, the pandemic has claimed over 3.48 million lives in 192 countries and regions, with more than 167.96 million cases reported worldwide, according to the US-based Johns Hopkins University.