Turkey: Tally of critical COVID-19 patients declining

Health minister urges Turkish citizens to remain committed to measures against outbreak

Turkey: Tally of critical COVID-19 patients declining

Turkey reported 1,603 more patients of the novel coronavirus and 1,320 recoveries over the past 24 hours, the country's Health Ministry said on Monday.

The overall patient count now stands at 326,046, with recoveries totaling 286,370, according to the ministry data.

More than 115,600 additional COVID-19 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours, bringing the tally to over 10.93 million.

The death toll from the virus reached 8,498, with 57 more fatalities.

The figures also showed that the number of patients in critical condition now stands at 1,412, while 6.2% of patients this week suffer from pneumonia.

"We have to reduce the number of our active cases," Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said on Twitter, adding that unity of citizens in following healthcare measures would strongly help all fight the disease.

Across the world, COVID-19 has claimed more than 1.03 million lives in 188 countries and regions since last December.

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

Over 35.27 million cases have been reported worldwide, with recoveries surpassing 24.55 million, according to figures compiled by the US-based Johns Hopkins University.