Turkey reports over 29,700 daily coronavirus cases

By Sena Guler and Burak Dag

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey on Wednesday reported more than 29,700 new coronavirus cases, according to the Health Ministry.

A total of 29,762 cases, including 1,142 symptomatic patients, were confirmed across the country, the official figures showed.

The daily case toll was up from 26,182 infections reported on Tuesday, which included 1,006 symptomatic patients.

Turkey’s overall case tally is now over 3 million, while the nationwide death toll has reached 30,462, with 146 more fatalities registered over the past day -- eight more over Tuesday’s toll.

As many as 17,761 more patients in the country won the battle against the virus, down from 19,201 on Tuesday, taking the total number of recoveries past 2.88 million.

Nearly 37 million coronavirus tests have been done in Turkey to date, with 221,738 done since Tuesday.

The latest figures showed that the number of COVID-19 patients in critical condition rose to 1,720 from 1,710 on Tuesday.

Since Turkey began a mass COVID-19 vaccination campaign on Jan. 14, it has administered over 14.12 million vaccine jabs, according to official figures.

Over 8 million people have received their first doses, while nearly 6 million people have completed a two-dose course.

On March 1, Turkey started easing weekend curfews while continuing weeknight curfews to stem the virus’ spread.

Since December 2019, the pandemic has claimed over 2.73 million lives in 192 countries and regions.

More than 124.37 million cases have been reported worldwide, with recoveries now over 70.57 million, according to figures compiled by the US’ Johns Hopkins University.