Turkey records big increase in COVID-19 cases
Turkey has relatively high rates of vaccination, and authorities are now pushing people to take booster doses.
Turkey reported a substantial jump in COVID-19 cases last night.
Turkish Health Minister Dr. Fahrettin Koca said in a release that there were 26,099 coronavirus cases recorded on Dec. 27. This constitutes a more than 20% jump from the 20,138 cases reported on Dec. 26. Koca said the increase is at least in part due to the Omicron variant of COVID-19.
Turkey is now averaging around 20,000 COVID-19 cases per day among its population of more than 80 million. This is below the average of more than 60,000 cases a day in April. The rate of deaths from the virus has been falling since September, according to data from Reuters. Koca reported 157 deaths yesterday.
The vaccination rate in Turkey is relatively high. More than 60 percent of the population has received at least one vaccine dose, according to Our World in Data.
