Turkey starting to emerge from COVID-19 crisis: Erdogan

By Faruk Zorlu

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey is beginning to see a light at the end of the tunnel in the fight against the novel coronavirus pandemic, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said late Monday.

"Turkey is leaving behind this troubled period through its motivation, where it looks to the future more confidently and full of hope," Erdogan said on Twitter.

Turkey is starting to achieve concrete results from its fight against the pandemic, Erdogan underlined.

Even if the number of tests for the coronavirus has reached 1 million, the number of new cases and the death toll fall every day, he said.

He noted that seeing more recoveries from the virus than new cases is an important turning point.

Turkey has provided material support to 55 countries to combat the pandemic, while 22.3 billion Turkish liras ($3.19 billion) have been set aside to meet the basic needs of 4 million Turkish citizens.

Support in cash was also given to 4.4 million households in Turkey.

Also due to the pandemic, Erdogan said courthouse procedures for cases, enforcement, complaints, objections and notifications have again been postponed, this time until June 15.

Monday’s figures also show that for the third straight day, Turkey saw more COVID-19 recoveries than new cases.

The death toll in Turkey from the novel coronavirus stands at 2,900 and 33,791 patients have been discharged from hospitals after recovering from the virus.

After originating in Wuhan, China last December, COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, has spread to at least 185 countries and regions across the world. Europe and the US are currently the worst-hit.

The pandemic has killed more than 210,800 people, with the total number of infections exceeding 3 million, while at least 892,000 have recovered from the disease, according to figures compiled by Johns Hopkins University of the US.