Turkey's daily COVID-19 death toll falls to 41, 1,610 new cases recorded

Turkey's daily COVID-19 death toll fell to 41 with 1,610 new confirmed cases on Saturday. Some 2,004 more people, in the meantime, have recovered from the disease, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said.

He added that Turkey carried out some 42,236 tests in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of tests to 1,589,625.

Koca said some 1,610 new cases were identified in the latest batch of tests, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 148,067.

With the latest figures, the total number of recovered cases reached 108,137.

While some 474 patients remain intubated, the number of patients in intensive care stands at 906.

Turkey has not imposed a stringent nationwide lockdown since reporting its first positive case on March 11, resorting instead to weekend curfews, initially in 31 provinces and cities. It also limited travel between those cities.

Yet, most recently, the country announced several new steps toward “normalization,” including the reopening of some businesses and lifting travel restrictions between some cities. Barbershops, hairdressers and shopping malls were also allowed to reopen but with specific measures to protect against the coronavirus.

Meanwhile, some 15 provinces among the initial number of 31 cities, including Istanbul, will go into a four-day curfew as of 12:01 a.m. Saturday as part of the measures that are still in effect.

According to the Interior Ministry, the 15 provinces that will have the curfew include the country’s most populous city Istanbul and capital Ankara, as well as Balıkesir, Bursa, Eskişehir, Gaziantep, Izmir, Kayseri, Kocaeli, Konya, Manisa, Sakarya, Samsun, Van and Zonguldak.