Turkey sees drop in number of daily COVID-19 cases

ANKARA

Turkey on Monday saw a drop in the number of daily coronavirus cases, with 1,008 additions, according to the country's health minister.

The number of daily cases has been falling each day as 1,016 new cases reported on Saturday and 1,012 on Sunday.

Fahrettin Koca said on Twitter that based on data from an average of one week ago, the country is determined to drop the number of daily cases below 1,000.

The country confirmed 1,156 more recoveries from the novel coronavirus, bringing the tally to 195,671, according to the ministry data.

The country's death toll from the virus rose to 5,382, with 19 daily fatalities reported.

Healthcare professionals conducted a total of 46,492 tests for the disease over the past day, raising the overall count to over 4.02 million.

Koca noted that the metropolitan city of Istanbul, the capital Ankara, as well as the southeastern provinces of Gaziantep, Sanliurfa, and Diyarbakir are the five provinces with the highest number of infected patients registered, adding that those cities also had the most average number of intensive care patients.

The coronavirus pandemic has claimed over 570,200 lives in 188 countries and regions since it originated in China last December.

Nearly 13 million COVID-19 cases have been reported around the world so far, with recoveries exceeding 7.15 million, according to figures compiled by the US' Johns Hopkins University.

The US, Brazil, Russia, and India are currently the worst-hit countries in the world.