Daily COVID-19 fatalities in Turkey hit a new high Tuesday with 211 deaths. Amid this grim outlook, stories of recovered patients serve as a dire warning to people, who still neglect basic safety measures like mask-wearing and social distancing.
Osman Okumuş, the mayor of the Türkoğlu district in southern Turkey’s Kahramanmaraş, survived the virus. “We understood how valuable it was to breathe, to have the oxygen God has blessed us with,” he said.
The 49-year-old father of four saw his wife Funda hospitalized about a month ago after she started suffering from fatigue and muscle pains. When she tested positive for COVID-19, the couple moved to another house to protect their children. As Okumuş cared for his wife, her situation worsened and she was hospitalized again. Despite their effort to protect the children, Okumuş learned that the entire family had already been infected. It took them one month to fully recover.
“I have to interact with people because of my job, but I have always been careful. Still, I was infected,” Okumuş told Anadolu Agency (AA) Wednesday. “The worst part of it was seeing my wife hooked up to an oxygen support unit. My condition was a little better, but I felt death was imminent and understood how much my family meant to me,” he said.
