Turkey: Daily virus recoveries nearly 3 times new cases

By Gozde Bayar and Handan Kazanci

ANKARA / ISTANBUL (AA) – Over the last 24 hours nearly three times as many people in Turkey recovered from COVID-19 than contracted the virus, said the country’s health minister on Thursday.

A total of 2,879 people recovered from the novel coronavirus in Turkey over the last day, bringing the total number to date to 190,390, Fahrettin Koca said.

Turkey saw 1,024 new cases of COVID-19 over the past day, bringing the total number of infections nationwide to date to 209,962, the data showed.

The country's death toll from the virus rose to 5,300, with 18 new fatalities reported in the last 24 hours.

Healthcare professionals did a total of 50,103 tests for the disease over the past day, raising the overall count to over 3.82 million.

The coronavirus pandemic has claimed nearly 551,000 lives in 188 countries and regions since it originated in China last December.

The US, Brazil, India, and Russia are currently the worst-hit countries in the world.

More than 12.1 million COVID-19 cases have been reported around the world so far, with recoveries topping 6.64 million, according to figures compiled by the US' Johns Hopkins University.