In the face of heightened threats from the Omicron variant of COVID-19, people must now stick to basic anti-virus rules and measures just like they did at the start of the pandemic, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca has said, SİA reports with with reference to Hurriyet Daily News.
The minister’s warning came after the daily virus cases in Turkey spiked last week, even hitting nearly 41,000 on Dec. 31, the highest level since April as the Omicron strain appears to be taking hold in the country.
“We need to put the face masks on properly and we must pay more attention to social distancing… against the dangers the Omicron variant is posing and to prevent the spread of it,” Koca wrote on Twitter on Jan. 1.
Earlier on Dec. 31, the minister issued a statement on the impact of the Omicron strain, saying that the rise in daily infections observed over the past week were in fact not unexpected.
“The strain is more transmissible and is becoming the dominant variant. The number of cases doubled in the country in the past 10 days,” Koca said in the statement.
He noted that in Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city, infections increased five-fold in the same period, and it accounted for more than 52 percent of all Omicron-linked cases in the country. “This situation may occur in all provinces in the near future.” Previously, Istanbul accounted for some 22 percent of all cases in the country.
Koca, however, stressed that despite the spike in infections, hospitalizations in the city and across the country increased only 6.2 percent and 4.6 percent, respectively, warning that the virus is hitting the elderly hard.
According to the minister, people aged over 60 accounted for more than 87 percent of fatalities due to the pandemic in the past one month, while the same age group accounted for some 17 percent of the cases recorded.
Bütün xəbərlər Facebook səhifəmizdə
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
USD
EUR
GBP
RUB