Turkey: COVID-19 recoveries near 148,000

By Erdogan Cagatay Zontur and Firdevs Bulut

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey on Thursday confirmed 987 daily recoveries from the novel coronavirus as the country continues easing measures against the pandemic, according to its health minister.

The total number of recoveries from the disease hit 147,860 as 1,021 more patients were discharged from hospitals over the past day, Fahrettin Koca said on Twitter, citing Health Ministry data.

"We have reached 2.5 million tests, 85% of the cases have recovered until now. Today's number of recovered patients is close to today's new cases.

"Virus takes power from false optimism. Do not ignore measures by thinking 'virus has slowed down'," he said.

The country's death toll from the virus rose to 4,763, as it reported 17 new fatalities.

Healthcare professionals performed 49,190 tests for the disease in the past 24 hours, raising the total number to more than 2.5 million.

According to test results, the total number of COVID-19 cases nationwide reached 174,023 with 987 new infections.

Since first appearing in China last December, the novel coronavirus has spread to at least 188 countries and regions.

The US, Brazil, Russia and several European countries are currently the hardest hit in the world.

The pandemic has killed over 418,000 people worldwide, with over 7.42 million confirmed cases and nearly 3.5 million recoveries, according to figures compiled by the US’ Johns Hopkins University.