Turkey’s health minister on March 6 announced COVID-19 infection rates on a provincial basis between Feb. 27 and March 5 as part of a new weekly initiative.
“The high-risk provinces should be more cautious to reduce their risk. Normalization should be realized in a controlled manner,” Fahrettin Koca said on Twitter, sharing the statistics.
The number of cases per 100,000 people is around 112 in the metropolis Istanbul, 55 in the capital Ankara, and 66 in the western Izmir province.
According to the data, Turkey’s Black Sea province of Samsun has the highest number of cases with 348 cases per 100,000 people.
The southeastern Şırnak, Batman, Mardin, Siirt, and Hakkari provinces have the lowest numbers of COVID-19 infections per 100,000 people.
Turkey began a mass COVID-19 vaccination campaign on Jan. 14 starting with health care workers along with top officials to encourage public confidence in the vaccines.
Since early December, Turkey has also implemented curfews on nights and weekends to curb the spread of the virus.
