This week both BBC and CNN aired reports on how Turkey has been successfully battling the novel coronavirus. CNN entered one of the most important coronavirus pandemic treatment hospitals in Istanbul to witness how Turkish hospitals and health staff are way ahead of their western peers. BBC’s report was on Turkey’s personal protective equipment efficiency. All those and also timely strict government measures have started to reflect on latest coronavirus stats which heralded a substantial drop next week.
Acclaimed Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca’s Twitter followers hit 5 million mark yesterday from a few hundred thousand in the pre-corona era. Hundreds of thousands of followers have turned the notifications on for his tweets to catch the latest stats which are mostly announced on Twitter every evening. Data on those tweets especially the past couple of days when compiled with ongoing four-day curfew, tells that Turkey may have already bent the curve and the numbers could dramatically show a downward movement next week.
On April 22nd, Turkey’s daily test/case ratio went down to 8,2 percent from previous day’s 11,6 percent which also meant around 1600 people less infection. Infection numbers were higher on April 21st and 20th from previous days due to repatriation of Turks abroad. The number of people in Intensive care units also went down to 1,790 on April 24th from 1,909 on April 20th which are the main source of the casualties. Intubated coronavirus patients were also 104 people less between the same dates. As CNN reporter Arwa Damon pointed out on her report, Turkish doctors have developed a unique treatment and the hospitals not being overwhelmed are two most important reasons behind Turkey’s impressively low death rate.
Turkish government have imposed 4-day-long curfew on between April 22nd and 24th fruits of which will certainly be visible on statistics next week. Turkey’s number of infections have been steady for a few days which could mean it might have already witnessed the plateau. The country has faced daily jumps in infections a couple of times which experts say is caused by Ankara’s large repatriation operation of its citizens from all around the world.
One of the best statistic so far was the number of recovered people on Friday. 3,246 people were recovered while 3,122 people were diagnosed with Covid-19. For the first time the number of recovered people exceeded infections. Acclaimed Health Minister of Turkey kept urging for mire caution though on his ever-popular Twitter account. Turkey now has the 7th largest infections in the world with 104,912 people. But its unique and successful approach kept the death rate at 2,4 percent. That is even below Germany which stands around 3 percent.
