250,000 people in Turkey believed to be carrying COVID-19 virus, says Science Committee member
Approximately 250,000 people in Turkey are believed to be carrying the COVID-19 virus, said a member of Turkish Health Ministry's Coronavirus Science Committee. Prof. Dr. Tevfik Özlü said that of this figure, some 215,000 show no symptoms of the disease.
Duvar English
A member of Turkish Health Ministry’s Coronavirus Science Committee has said that nearly 250,000 people are believed to be infected with the COVID virus in Turkey.
Prof. Dr. TevfikÖzlü that of this figure, approximately 215,000 are asymptotic cases, and only 17,000-18,000people show symptoms of illness.
The professormade the remarks on Aug. 6 on a program aired on CNN Türk, saying that he wasbasing these figures based on calculation models.
“You can beinfected with the virus without even noticing it, or you might be a carrier. Allof us right now should think this way: ‘I am also carrying the virus, andeveryone I meet can be carrying the virus,’” he said.
Özlü said thatTurkey is experiencing a resurgence in COVID-19 infection figures and this isalso the case for other countries.
“Unfortunately the pandemic is not slowing down, but instead is on the rise. In the upcoming days, this will be coupled with the affects of the chain of spread that happened during the Eid al-Adha," he said.
Özlü said that although there are currently quite a number of empty beds in intensive care units at the hospitals, this might not last in the long run. He said that if the pandemic gets worse and other respitory disesases also get in the picture in the autumn, then Turkey might face a shortage in terms of intensive care unit beds.
The country’s daily COVID-19 cases have recently shown a sharp rebounding trend, with more than 1,000 daily jump in successive days.
HealthMinister Fahrettin Koca said on Twitter on Aug. 6 that a total of 1,153 peoplecontracted the virus over the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of casesin the country to 237,265.
The country'sdeath toll from the disease rose to 5,798, with 14 new fatalities over the past24 hours, he said, citing Health Ministry data.
“The number of new patients, deaths and seriously ill patients as well as pneumonia rate are less with some differences compared to yesterday. But none of these data are reassuring in terms of results of tomorrow or the week after. Only strict measures can form the basis of good news,” he wrote.