Turkey builds more hospitals as coronavirus cases spike
More than 30,000 people have been diagnosed with COVID-19 less than a month since it was confirmed to have reached Turkey as the government continues to resist imposing a full lockdown.
ISTANBUL — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan promised on Monday to expand the number of hospital beds in Istanbul, the epicenter of the country’s coronavirus outbreak, as the disease claimed another 75 lives despite tighter restrictions on residents to enforce social distancing.
The latest deaths raised the toll from COVID-19 in Turkey to 649 people, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said on Twitter. The number of confirmed cases in the last 24 hours increased by 3,148 to 30,217, placing Turkey ninth among the nations with the highest number of cases. The world has counted 1.29 million cases and nearly 71,000 deaths since the virus emerged in China in December.
