Turkey reports over 2,200 new recoveries from COVID-19

By Firdevs Bulut and Jeyhun Aliyev

ANKARA (AA) - As many as 2,219 people in Turkey recovered from the novel coronavirus over the past 24 hours, said the country's health minister on Wednesday.

"The average hospitalization duration in Turkey was 21-22 days, now it is around three days, and the average intensive care duration was 18-20 days, now it is around two," Fahrettin Koca told a news conference following a meeting of the country's Coronavirus Scientific Advisory Board.

The country registered 1,041 new cases over the past day, bringing the tally to 208,938.

Koca underlined that most of the cases over the past three days came from the major provinces of Istanbul, Ankara, Gaziantep, Konya, Mardin, Diyarbakir, and Sanliurfa.

He said that with the latest additions, overall recoveries now climbed to 187,511.

The country's death toll from the pandemic also rose to 5,282, with 22 new fatalities reported over the last 24 hours.

A total of 1,172 patients remain in intensive care units in the country.

Around 18,000 people have been fined over the past week due to not complying with coronavirus measures across Turkey, said Koca.

The country's overall count of COVID-19 tests rose to more than 3.78 million, with over 49,300 new tests done on Wednesday.

Since it originated in China last December, nearly 11.9 million COVID-19 cases have been reported worldwide so far, with recoveries topping 6.48 million, according to figures compiled by the US' Johns Hopkins University.

The global death toll currently stands at over 545,000.