Some 842 coronavirus patients have recovered across Turkey in the last 24 hours, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca announced Tuesday. The figure marks a single-day record for recoveries.
Koca said 4,062 people tested positive for COVID-19 in the past day as total caseload reached 65,111.
Meanwhile, the death toll hit 1,403, with a record daily increase of 107. More than 443,000 people have been tested for the coronavirus so far, including 33,070 in the past 24 hours.
Speaking on Turkey's effectiveness in curbing the spread of COVID-19, Koca said the case increase rate started falling in the fourth week since the first infection was reported.
The minister also lauded the success of efforts to track down people who have been in contact with the infected. Roughly 250,000 people across Turkey were found to have been in contact with COVID-19 and are being monitored by special teams, he said.
"We have tried to identify and contact people that each of the patients diagnosed positive has been in contact with over the last three days," Koca said.
Some 4,600 teams are working to track down possible cases, including 1,600 in worst-hit Istanbul province.
"General screening is not the right method, nor is it rational in order to get reliable results. We will proceed by making point shots," Koca said as he again spoke out against widespread testing.
Turkey is the seventh worst-hit country in the world in terms of the number of active COVID-19 cases, with 58,909 patients as of Tuesday.
The worldwide number of confirmed coronavirus cases hovered around 2 million Tuesday. Of those 1.98 million cases, more than 120,000 people have died, while over 460,000 have recovered.
