Turkey: COVID-19 recoveries top 152,000

Turkey on Monday confirmed 947 daily recoveries from the novel coronavirus, bringing the total to over 152,000, according to the country's health minister.

The number of people beating the disease reached 152,364, while 722 patients remain in intensive care, Fahrettin Koca said on Twitter, citing the Health Ministry data.

Stressing the importance of observing coronavirus rules, Koca said that rise in COVID-19 cases intensify in specific regions. "Compared to yesterday, the number of cases increased by 30, the number of intensive care patients increased by 5 and the number of intubated patients increased by 1," he added.

The country's death toll from the pandemic rose to 4,825, as it reported 18 new fatalities in the past 24 hours.

Turkey has reported less than 20 daily deaths for seven days in a row.

Health care professionals conducted 42,032 tests for the disease in the past day, raising the total count to over 2.67 million.

According to test results, the total number of COVID-19 cases nationwide reached 179,831, with nearly 1,600 new infections.

Since first appearing in China last December, the novel coronavirus has spread to at least 188 countries and regions.

The US, Brazil and Russia are currently the hardest-hit in the world.

The pandemic has killed over 434,300 people worldwide, with more than 7.96 million confirmed cases and over 3.8 million recoveries, according to figures compiled by the US' Johns Hopkins University.