Turkey Virus Death Toll Hits Record for 7th Day in a Row

World

November 29th, 5:25pm

Asharq Al-Awsat

A general view of a deserted street during a curfew in Istanbul, Turkey. Reuters file photo

Turkey's daily COVID-19 death toll hit a record high for a seventh consecutive day on Sunday, with 185 fatalities in the last 24 hours, data from the Health Ministry showed. The number of new cases of coronavirus infections, including asymptomatic ones, fell slightly to 29,281. For four months, Turkey only reported symptomatic cases, but since Wednesday it has reported all cases. No country can report exact numbers on the spread of the disease since many asymptomatic cases go undetected, but the previous way of counting made Turkey look relatively well-off in international comparisons, with daily new cases far below those reported in European countries including Italy, Britain and France. The total number of deaths since the start of the pandemic in March stood at 13,558 in Turkey, data released Sunday showed. The country has reached an agreement to receive 50 million doses of the vaccine developed by Chinese pharmaceutical company SinoVac and hopes to begin administering it to medical staff and the chronically ill next month. It is also in talks to purchase the vaccine developed by Pfizer in cooperation with the BioNTech pharmaceutical company. A Turkish-developed vaccine is scheduled to be ready to use in April.

from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/2654321/turkey-virus-death-toll-hits-record-7th-day-row