Turkey administers over 1.2M COVID-19 vaccine shots in 24 hours

By Jeyhun Aliyev and Handan Kazanci

ANKARA/ISTANBUL (AA) - Turkey administered over 1.2 million shots of COVID-19 vaccines over the past day, according to official figures released on Monday.

More than 42.7 million doses of coronavirus vaccines have been administered since the country launched a mass vaccination campaign in mid-January.

Over 28.2 million people have received their first doses, while over 14.49 million have been fully vaccinated, showed the Health Ministry count.

It also confirmed 5,294 new coronavirus cases across the country in the last 24 hours, including 429 symptomatic patients. The number of new infections on Sunday was 5,091.

Turkey's overall case tally is now over 5.37 million, while the nationwide death toll has reached 49,236 with 51 new fatalities.

As many as 5,093 more patients won the battle against the virus, raising the total number of recoveries past 5.23 million.

Over 58.77 million coronavirus tests have been done to date.

The latest figures put the number of COVID-19 patients in critical condition at 808.

Last week, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca announced on Twitter that among 206 countries, Turkey ranked ninth in the number of vaccines administered.

The country is now set to end pandemic curfews as of July 1 amid a nationwide fall in COVID-19 cases, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Monday.

Thanks to the drop in virus cases, Turkey will return to normal working order in public institutions and organizations as of July 1, Erdogan told reporters.

Since December 2019, the pandemic has claimed over 3.86 million lives in 192 countries and regions, with more than 178.5 million cases reported worldwide, according to the US’ Johns Hopkins University.​​​​​​​