The infection rate from the coronavirus in Turkey has increased by 1.3 times since May, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said Sunday.

This rate indicates how many other people on average an infected person infects. The lower the rate, the slower the spread of the virus.

The greatest increase was seen in the southeastern province of Şanlıurfa, which rose 1.7 times.

In the capital Ankara, the rate rose by 1.6 times, and in southeastern Diyarbakır and Gaziantep, it rose by 1.4 times and 1.3 times, respectively, Koca said on Twitter.

Koca said the conclusion that must be drawn from this data is the importance of wearing masks, maintaining social distance and practicing proper hygiene.

"Turkey reached the highest daily test numbers with 63,842 tests yesterday during the pandemic," Koca also said, noting that the number of new daily cases remains below 1,200.

The rate of pneumonia among patients has dropped, while the number of hospitalized patients and the number of discharged patients "are very close to each other," Koca said.

On Sunday, Turkey reported 1,182 new cases and 15 deaths in the past 24 hours, Koca wrote on Twitter.

The total death toll from COVID-19 in Turkey rose to 5,844, while 240,804 cases have been recorded.

Another 1,182 patients recovered from the coronavirus on Sunday, bringing the total recoveries to 223,759.

Turkey's daily death toll has remained below 20 since July 16 as the coronavirus outbreak follows a somewhat uniform trend in the country. The number of new daily cases continues to hover around the 1,000 mark.