Turkey's metropolitan cities top in intubation, intensive care for COVID-19 patients

Turkey's metropolitan cities Istanbul, Ankara and central Anatolian Konya are leading in the number of COVID-19 patients who are intubated or who need intensive care.

Duvar English

Istanbul, Ankara and central Anatolian Konya are leading in the number of COVID-19 patients who need intubation or intensive care, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said on July 12.

The three metropolitan cities observed the last three days' highest average numbers of patients who got intubated, along with southeastern Diyarbakır and western Bursa.

Meanwhile, southeastern Şanlıurfa and Gaziantep were the two other cities that observed the last three days' highest number of COVID-19 patients in intensive care along with Ankara, Istanbul and Konya.

The minister also reported that 19 patients had died on July 12, the number of new diagnoses was 1,012 and the total number of deaths from the virus reached 5,363.

Turkey's number of daily COVID-19 diagnoses spiked following June 1, when the country initiated its "normalization" plan, reopening businesses, resuming transportation and lifting curfews.

Health Minister Koca shares photos of crowded public spaces almost daily, reminding his followers that "the picture of new diagnoses for next week is being prepared today."

"The opportunities that the virus seizes today show up on the picture in about a week. Many situations that seem inevitable make us compromise on precautions; let's try to minimize those. Let's not take risks if we can avoid them. Let's lower the NUMBER OF NEW CASES with the precuations we take today," Koca tweeted on July 13.