Turkey reports lowest number of new coronavirus cases since late March

Duvar English

Turkey has reported the lowest daily number of new coronavirus cases since late March. The country recorded 786 new cases of Covid-19 in the last 24 hours, taking the total to 165,555.

The Health Ministry added 22 fatalities to the death toll on June 2, with 4,585 fatalities in total since the outbreak began in March.

"The total number of our tests has exceeded 2.1 million. The number of our recovering patients is 130,000. The number of our patients requiring intensive care is decreasing," Health Minister Fahrettin Koca wrote on Twitter, once again urging citizens to pay attention to hygiene, to wear facial masks and to maintain their social distance.

Turkey re-opened restaurants, cafes and parks on June 1 and lifted inter-city travel curbs. The government has been gradually easing the restrictions for the past few weeks, as authorities say the outbreak is now under control.

A recent study however revealed that starting to lift Covid-19 measures in June, when Turkey in fact did start the normalization process, would create higher risk of a second wave of infections.

Conducted by members of research-focused NGO Science Academy and Özyeğin University, the research titled “The normalization process of the COVID-19 pandemic and fluctuations” hypothesizes on two scenarios of lifting preventative measures.

The first normalization scenario looks into the results of lifting bans at the start of June, July or August.

“The simulations show that all three cases would result in a second wave of infections, but that June is particularly premature to start normalization,” the research noted, adding that additional infections would be easier to manage in July or August.