Turkey's coronavirus death toll rises by 115 to 1,518

Duvar English

Turkey’s death toll from the coronavirus rose by 115 to total 1,518 and new confirmed cases rose by 4,281 to bring the country’s total to 69,392, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said on April 15. 

A total of 5,674 people have recovered so far, and the number of tests carried out over the past 24 hours was 34,090, the minister said. 

"The rate of increase in the number of cases and the rate of increase in the number of patients who require intensive care and ventilator support show a tendency to remain stable," Koca wrote on his Twitter.

Turkey is currently treating 1,820 patients in intensive care units, according official figures.

Turkey confirmed its first coronavirus case early on March 11. Since then, the government has taken a series of precautions to curb the spread of the virus.

On April 13, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced that Turkey will impose a fresh lockdown this weekend, after a 48-hour curfew in major 31 cities that ended at midnight on April 12.

“We have decided to continue to implement weekend curfews in the upcoming period, as needed. I would like to announce to our citizens hereby that a curfew will be implemented starting on April 17 night and ending on April 19 night,” Erdoğan said.

Meanwhile, the Ankara-based think tank Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV) has predicted that the country’s economy would shrink by 20 percent if the COVID-19 outbreak were to last six months. It predicted a 40 percent downsize in the case of a yearlong outbreak. 

The study predicted tourism income to drop to zero in a yearlong outbreak, while income derived from food businesses and hotels was projected to fall by 90 percent.