Health Ministry ended another practice that became a daily life staple since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic – publishing the daily cases figure. Minister Fahrettin Koca announced that the publication of daily statistics on the ministry's website would be replaced with weekly figures starting Tuesday. The decision comes amid a significant drop in coronavirus cases in the country.
Ministry's website dedicated to the pandemic has been among Turkey's most visited online sources since the first few cases were reported in March 2020. It started with a simple page with a set of numbers related to the pandemic but later expanded into a comprehensive guide for people inquiring about ways to protect themselves against the pandemic.
Daily figures released every evening also helped the public track the course of the pandemic and projections related to the process. For instance, authorities have recently pledged to remove one of two remaining mask mandates in place, if the daily number of cases remains below the 1,000 mark for three consecutive days, drawing visitors to the website to check if the cases were low enough for an end to the mandate.
The website was updated at the peak of the pandemic with weekly figures shown on a map of the country after a vaccination drive began in January 2021, including the rate of vaccination – a key data that would later serve as the basis for lifting the pandemic-related restrictions. A separate website on vaccination drive is still available, with a map displaying vaccination rates for each of the 81 provinces.
Turkey reported progress in recovering from the pandemic after two tough years during which 97,666 lives were lost to the deadly infection. The total number of cases since 2020 has been more than 14.7 million. The latest figures from Wednesday show there were only 975 daily cases with four fatalities.
As for vaccination, the rate of people with two doses of vaccine, the minimum level for protection against coronavirus, exceeded 85% while a total of more than 147 million doses have been administered since January 2021.
