Turkey's daily COVID-19 death toll rose by 55 with 1,635 new confirmed cases as 2,315 more people recovered, Health Minister Fahrettinm Koca said Thursday.

According to Koca, Turkey carried out 34,821 tests in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number to 1,508,824.

Relaying the country’s latest statistics on coronavirus, Koca said 2,315 new cases were identified in the latest batch of tests, which brought the total number of confirmed cases to 144,749.

According to the minister, the number of people recovered from COVID-19 rose to 104,030 with 2,315 patients recovering in the past 24 hours.

Meanwhile, 55 more deaths were confirmed from COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, bringing the death toll to 4,007, and 963 patients remained in intensive care units.

Turkey has not imposed a stringent nationwide lockdown since reporting its first positive case on March 11, resorting instead to weekend curfews in 31 provinces and cities. It also limited travel between those cities.

Yet, last week, it announced a number of new steps toward "normalization," including the reopening of some businesses and lifting travel restrictions between some cities. Barbershops, hairdressers and shopping malls will be allowed to reopen on Monday but with specific measures to protect against the coronavirus.

Over 4 million cases have been reported in 187 countries since the virus emerged in China last December, with the hardest-hit areas being the U.S. and Europe.

A significant proportion of COVID-19 patients, over 1.38 million, have recovered, but the disease has claimed nearly 280,000 lives, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University in the U.S.