COVID-19: Turkey sees highest daily recovery, deaths near 3,000

By Erdogan Cagatay Zontur and Havva Kara Aydin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey on Tuesday saw the highest number of former coronavirus patients discharged in a single day, the country's health minister said.

A total of 5,018 patients were discharged from medical care after recovering from the virus in the last 24 hours alone, making a total of 38,809 patients discharged, Fahrettin Koca announced on Twitter.

“Over 5,000 patients have been recovered in past 24 hours. Total number of recoveries neared 40,000,” he said.

Koca also confirmed 92 more fatalities from coronavirus over the past 24 hours, bringing the total death toll to 2,992, citing Health Ministry data.

The total number of registered coronavirus cases rose to 114,653, as 2,392 more people tested positive for the virus.

The number of patients in intensive care and intubated patients continued to drop. The number of new cases is as predicted, according to Koca.

He also underlined the success of the high number of tests given, saying: “We will soon top 1 million tests total. Let's not endanger this success."

A total of 29,230 tests for the virus were conducted over the past 24 hours, with the total reaching 948,115, according to the data.

Tuesday’s numbers also show that for the fourth straight day, Turkey saw more COVID-19 recoveries than new cases.

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

The pandemic has killed more than 212,000 people, with total infections exceeding 3.06 million, while nearly 906,000 have recovered from the disease, according to figures compiled by the US’ Johns Hopkins University.