For the first time in the preceding nine months, Turkey reported nearly 55,000 coronavirus cases in a single day, according to official figures released on Tuesday.
The country has administered more than 133.5 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines since it launched an immunization drive in January 2021.
At least 56.9 million people have gotten a first jab, while over 51.7 million have been fully vaccinated, the Health Ministry said.
Turkiye has given third booster shots to more than 20 million people.
The ministry confirmed 54,724 new COVID-19 infections, 137 deaths, and 26,561 recoveries over the past day.
As many as 382,888 virus tests were done in the past 24 hours.
“The Omicron variant caused the number of cases in Istanbul to exceed half the total number of cases,” Turkiye’s Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said on Twitter.
Koca warned that the increase in the number of cases due to the new variant can also be experienced in other provinces. “Measures should be observed with the same seriousness everywhere,” he said.
Since December 2019, the pandemic has claimed over 5.45 million lives in at least 192 countries and regions, with more than 292.9 million cases reported worldwide, according to the US’ Johns Hopkins University.
