Turkish doctor warns everyone vulnerable to COVID-19 disease

Everyone is facing the risk of getting infected by the novel coronavirus and suffer from severe illness, a Turkish doctor said, calling on people to comply with the rules to stem the spread of virus.

"The most affected has been the 65-year-old and older. If there are young people who say 'it will not infect me,' [you should know] it has started to be seen among the young people as well," Hüseyin Şahin, a medical doctor at Tekirdağ Namık Kemal University in northwestern Turkey, told Anadolu Agency.

Sahin said that COVID-19 infection percentage is increasing, especially among children aged 15 and below.

"Young people should be careful about this, too," he said.

Although the world went through many pandemics, Sahin cautioned that COVID-19 might be the most ravaging one.

Health professionals are working devotedly to cure infected people, he said.

"While the risk of contracting coronavirus is 1% for a person walking on the street, it is around 20% for health workers," Sahin said.

"That's why we are concerned about our health, too."

The health professional who heads the emergency medicine department stressed that people should be more careful during the pandemic for themselves, their families and health workers.

"We stayed at hospital at nights not to transmit the virus to our family," he said, adding that as emergency service they were always on duty.

"People should help health workers. The rules are clear. People should pay attention to wearing mask, keeping social distance and cleaning their hands," Sahin reminded people of their duties.

Turkey on Thursday reported 1,512 new cases of the novel coronavirus, and 1,219 recoveries.

The country's overall infection count reached 286,455, while the recovery toll stood at 255,407, according to Health Ministry data.