Turkey: Nearly 1,000 COVID-19 patients recover over past day

By Jeyhun Aliyev

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey on Sunday confirmed 997 coronavirus recoveries in the last 24 hours, bringing the tally to date to nearly 231,000, according to the country's health minister.

"Our number of new diagnoses is less than yesterday," Fahrettin Koca said on Twitter, also sharing Health Ministry data.

"Out of our total number of cases so far, 12,366 PEOPLE are still patients with active cases. Thus, they have the potential to spread the virus. These people and their contacts are in ISOLATION."

Koca stressed that if people follow measures against the pandemic, and protect themselves from the risk, the country will achieve better results faster.

Turkey reported 1,192 additional cases of COVID-19 over the past day, raising the tally to 249,309, the data showed.

The death toll climbed to 5,974 after 19 more people passed away since Saturday.

Healthcare professionals did 65,956 tests for the disease over the past day, raising the tally to over 5.72 million.

Since it originated in China last December, the coronavirus pandemic has claimed over 771,800 lives in 188 countries and regions.

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

Over 21.52 million virus cases have been reported worldwide, with recoveries exceeding 13.52 million, according to figures compiled by the US' Johns Hopkins University.