Turkey begins publishing weekly COVID-19 case numbers

The Health Ministry of Turkey stopped publishing the daily case count, which had become a part of daily life since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. On Tuesday, Minister Fahrettin Koca said that weekly statistics would replace daily statistics on the ministry's website. The decision comes after a sharp decrease in the number of coronavirus cases in the country.

Since the first confirmed cases in March 2020, the Ministry's pandemic website has been one of Turkey's most viewed. It grew from a simple page with a series of pandemic-related numbers to a full resource for those looking for information on how to protect themselves against the outbreak.

The distribution of daily statistics each evening was also beneficial in assisting the public in tracking the course of the pandemic and related projections. For example, officials recently committed to repealing one of the two remaining mask regulations if the daily number of cases falls below 1,000 for three consecutive days, enticing users to the website to see if the number of cases was low enough to repeal the mandate.

During the peak of the pandemic, the website was updated weekly with information depicted on a map of the country, including the vaccination rate — critical information that would eventually serve as the foundation for easing pandemic-related restrictions. There is still a separate website for vaccination drives, as well as a map showing immunization numbers for each of Canada's 81 provinces.

Turkey's recovery from the epidemic showed improvement after two terrible years in which 97,666 people died as a result of the dreadful outbreak. Since 2020, the cumulative number of cases has surpassed 14.7 million. More than 147 million coronavirus treatments have been distributed since January 2021.