ISTANBUL — Turkey’s health minister said on Thursday the country has proven it “gets results” in its fight against the novel coronavirus after nearly 83,000 people recovered and the number of new deaths sunk to their lowest level since March. Now the government is contending with a crunch on the economic front as the lira sinks to record lows.

“We must push back this virus in a determined manner and defeat it with our measures. We have proven that it is not difficult to get results,” tweeted Health Minister Fahrettin Koca. The day before, he told a news conference, “The first phase in the fight against coronavirus is over. … We own a success that the rest of the world is working to emulate.”

Koca has credited innovative drug therapies including the controversial hydroxychloroquine as well as a lower rate of intubation and expansive contact tracing for Europe’s lowest death rate from the virus at 2.7%. However, testing has slowed in recent days, down to 30,395 on Thursday compared with a peak of 43,498 on April 29.

Other factors that have helped Turkey include Europe’s youngest population and social norms against depositing the elderly in nursing homes, which have been devastated by the virus in the West, wrote political scientist Evren Balta and international relations professor Soli Ozel in an article for Institut Montaigne this week.