The COVID-19 epidemic in Turkey has lately shown a sharp rebounding trend, with more than 1,000 daily new cases in successive days.
Health Minister Fahrettin Koca on Aug. 5 said that 1,178 more people contracted coronavirus in the past day, bringing the total number of cases nationwide to 236,112.
The country’s death toll from the disease rose to 5,784, with 19 new fatalities registered in the last 24 hours, Koca said, citing Health Ministry data.
“The number of new patients increased by 88 yesterday compared to the day before, whereas increased by 95 today compared to yesterday,” Koca wrote on Twitter.
“We need to prevent the risk in the Eid al-Adha and holiday from causing new consequences. We need unity in precautions.”
The country’s new coronavirus cases surpassed 1,000 for the first time in three weeks on Aug. 4, breaching what the government has called a critical threshold to possibly reconsider rules. This has prompted the government to roll out new inspection and enforcement rules as New cases had hovered just below 1,000 since July 13.
On Aug. 4, the government adopted daily quarantine inspections, new tracing oversight in all cities and measures for weddings, funerals and other large gatherings, even while it avoided broad curbs on economic activity.
The Interior Ministry said the nationwide rules – including some fines for violations – were needed to sustain the fight against the pandemic, putting Turkey seventeenth globally in a tally of total cases.
The Central Anatolian province of Kırıkkale will pilot a new call center that checks complaints about citizens ignoring face masks and other rules, and for a “safe area” rewards system for business that abide them, the ministry said.