Turkey logs over 13,000 new COVID cases, highest since January 6

Turkey reported 13,215 new cases of coronavirus on Monday, the highest level since January 6, bringing the total number of cases to 2,793,632.

Data on Monday also showed 64 people died due to COVID-19 in the same period, raising the toll to 29,094.

Last week, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan lifted weekend lockdowns in low- and medium-risk cities. He also limited lockdowns to Sundays in those areas deemed higher risk under what he called a “controlled normalisation”.

On January 14, Turkey began a COVID-19 vaccination campaign with China-made Sinovac vaccine, starting with healthcare workers along with top officials to encourage public confidence in the vaccines.

The country has administered more than 10 million coronavirus vaccines across the country, according to health ministry data.

In the commercial hub Istanbul, home to nearly one-fifth of Turkey’s population, more than 1.59 million coronavirus vaccine jabs were administered. More than 1.17 million first doses were administrated and 422,578 second doses were dispensed.

Following Istanbul, more than 824,468 coronavirus vaccine jabs were given in the capital Ankara.