Turkey has recorded 58 deaths and 1,615 new coronavirus patients over the past day, the Health Ministry announced Thursday.
According to Health Ministry data, more than 117,000 coronavirus tests were carried out across the country in the past 24 hours. Turkey has conducted more than 11 million COVID-19 tests since the outbreak’s start in the country.
With Thursday’s numbers, Turkey’s total death toll from COVID-19 rose to 8,667, while the total number of patients stood at 330,753.
Meanwhile, the number of recoveries also increased to 290,352 with 1,398 patients declared healthy.
“The number of our critical patients continue to decline. The tools that can control the outbreak are filiation and isolation. If we follow the measures, we won’t even need them. We can bring the outrbreak under control,” Health Minister Fahrettin Koca wrote on Twitter.
After going through the worst of the outbreak and managing to lower the number of daily cases below 1,000, Turkey has been witnessing a resurgence in new infections.
In an effort to halt the steadily rising infection rates, the government introduced several measures. It made wearing masks outside mandatory across all provinces and began running mass transit at a reduced capacity.
The Education Ministry also scrapped its plans to fully reopen schools, opting for a more gradual opening. Kindergartners and first graders were the first group allowed back in classrooms in September, with more students starting in-person education at schools on Monday.
