Turkey’s 3 biggest cities fall under low-risk category of coronavirus

Turkey's top three metropolitan cities fell under the category of low-risk provinces as the most recent COVID-19 infections rates revealed on Saturday.

Health Minister Fahrettin Koca shared the latest weekly infection rates data for COVID-19 across the 81 provinces for Aug. 14 to 20.

Revealing a fall in the weekly infection rates in Istanbul, which is home to nearly one-fifth of the country's population, the data showed that the number of cases per 100,000 people was 147.73 in the metropolis, down from 181.96 last week.

The capital Ankara registered 176.38 cases per 100,000 people, a fall from 199.55 a week earlier, and it was 46.24 in the Aegean province of Izmir, down from 49.81 last week.

The northern Rize province on the Black Sea region topped the list with 538.1 cases per 100,000 people and was followed by eastern provinces of Bingol, Batman and Bayburt, and Aksaray in central Turkey.

"Herd immunity is possible through solidarity," he said, urging people to get vaccinated.

Koca had announced on Thursday that there was no province left with high risk of COVID-19 infection across Turkey.

Turkey has administered more than 92.5 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines since it launched a mass vaccination campaign in January, according to the latest official figures.

It has entered a new normalization phase in July amid a nationwide fall in virus cases and an expedited vaccination drive, lifting almost all virus-related restrictions.

Since December 2019, the pandemic has claimed nearly 4.48 million lives in 192 countries and regions, with over 215.49 million cases reported worldwide, according to the US' Johns Hopkins University.