Turkey's Covid-19 cases surge past 180,000 mark

Duvar English

Turkey on June 16 confirmed 1,467 more cases of the novel coronavirus, bringing the total tally to 181,298, according to the Health Ministry data.

The country's death toll from the virus rose to 4,842, as it reported 17 more fatalities in the past 24 hours.

Health care professionals conducted nearly 47,000 tests to detect the disease in the past day, raising the total count to over 2.72 million.

"The number of new cases is 125 less than yesterday. The number of new patients who have been hospitalized is 210. The number of our intensive care patients has increased by 10," Health Minister Fahrettin Koca wrote on Twitter. Koca added that "some regions and group behaviors" were responsible from the recent rise in infection figures.

This month restaurants and cafes reopened, intercity flights and car travel resumed and weekend stay-home orders were lifted. However, new Covid-19 19 cases have roughly doubled to over 1,500 per day since June 1.

As Turks have poured into the streets, malls and parks or taken vacations - often without face masks - authorities have urged caution and said new cases are emerging in more rural central and southeastern provinces.

Wearing masks in public is currently compulsory in about half of Turkey's provinces, but not in the big cities.

At its height, the outbreak centered on the main cities of Istanbul, İzmir and Ankara but in the last two weeks 450 infections were reported in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır.

Turkey's top medical association this week criticized the decision to ease restrictions too soon.