#Turkey’s virus tolls tops 10,000

Turkey saw its coronavirus death toll surpass 10,000 on Wednesday, becoming the eighth country in Europe to reach the grim milestone.

The nation of 83 million people has now officially recorded 10,027 deaths from the virus, registering 77 fatalities on Wednesday.

Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said Istanbul was now recording nearly half of Turkey’s new infections, describing the rise as “scary”.

“If we cannot control the virus in Istanbul, it will be hard to tackle,” he said.

Turkey has been commended by the World Health Organisation for its response to the health crisis, requiring people to wear masks on the streets across big cities since July.

The measure was applied nationally last month.

But the WHO has rapped Turkey for being vague about how it counts new infections.

Turkey now publishes the number of coronavirus “patients”, which Koca said last month only referred to people with symptoms—and not everyone who tests positive for the virus.

Turkey recorded 2,305 new “patients” on Wednesday, and has counted nearly 370,000 since the crisis began.

Turkish officials have so far refrained from adopting the national or regional lockdown measures being reintroduced across much of Europe this month.

© 2020 AFP