Last week in Turkey: Nearing the end of the outbreak

In Turkey, the number of patients recovered from the coronavirus climbed to 121,507 over the past 24 hours, while only 948 new cases were reported in the country bringing the total to 158,762. On top of that, there were 28 new fatalities reported according to the health ministry data, bringing the total death toll to 4,397. There are still 739 patients being treated under intensive care.

Turkey is seeing a significant rise in the number of COVID-19 recoveries, Fahrettin Koca of the country’s Health Ministry said today.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Monday that Turkey has successfully managed the course of the novel coronavirus pandemic and is nearing the end of the outbreak.

“The picture after the normalisation steps we took shows that we are on the right track” said President Erdoğan.

Addressing the members of his ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party, Erdogan thanked the public for staying at home during a four-day curfew over the holiday.

He added: “I believe that we will overcome this epidemic period with the least damage through this [‘new normal’] lifestyle, that we can summarize as wearing masks, compliance with physical distance, and attention to cleanliness.”

Turkey implemented a four-day curfew across the country during the Eid holiday beginning at midnight on Friday to restrain the spread. Although Turkey usually declares curfew at the weekends in the major cities, this time it covered the entire country for four days to include the Eid holiday which marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The first curfew was declared on April 11-12 and followed by others in the past weeks.

Health Minister Fahrettin Koca announced on his Twitter, “Our new lifestyle is: CONTROLLED SOCIAL LIFE, and general precaution.”

Dr. Irshad Ali Shaikh, the World Health Organization (WHO) representative to Turkey told Aydınlık newspaper that Turkey has definitely done well and turned the corner on the crisis. He also said that lessons should be learned looking from how well Turkey did in its struggle against COVID-19.