Turkey’s trial with the COVID-19 pandemic continues as the country prepares to bid farewell to the second year under the shadow of the deadly epidemic.
The latest figures by Health Ministry shows that the pandemic is still going strong in most of the 81 provinces though the daily cases dropped recently.
The weekly figures for the period between Dec. 11 and Dec. 17 released on Monday indicate that Çanakkale in the west had the highest number of cases, 456 per 100,000 people of provincial population.
On the other hand, big cities, despite the difficulty of containing the pandemic due to population density, saw a decline in cases.
Though the difference was minor compared to the previous weeks, Istanbul, the most populous among the 81 provinces with a population of more than 15 million, had 244 cases per 100,000 people, one less case compared to the week preceding Dec. 11. The capital Ankara reported 158 cases while the third-largest Izmir had only around 67 cases per 100,000 people.
Weekly figures are a precursor of the pandemic, which has gone through several “waves” in the country since it made its foray in March 2020. Nowadays, the number of daily cases fluctuate around 20,000 while the daily fatalities are below 200.
