ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Doctors at coronavirus hot spots in Turkey say hospitals are filling up with more than the official national count reflects, which has fallen above 1,000 this week.
Intensive care teams (ICU) and emergency rooms at COVID-19 patient hospitals are in full capacity in the capital, Ankara, and in the southeastern city of Gaziantep, medical associations in the regions told Reuters.
The government, which lifted a partial blockade in June to revive the economy, issued its own warning Tuesday when the fitness minister described the 1,083 new coVID-19 instances as a “severe” buildup after a four-day holiday weekend.
In response, the government implemented new inspections and enforcement measures, adding fines for wearing a mask or maintaining social estrangement. The new instances hovered just under 1000 for more than 3 weeks, according to official figures.
But Aysegul Ates Tarla, director of the Gaziantep-Kilis Chamber of Physicians, said that only one hospital in the region had recently recorded two hundred new instances of COVID-19 in one day, and that the infection rate among fitness personnel is very high.
In Ankara, Ali Karakoc, general secretary of his doctors’ chamber, said that some 1,000 more people tested positive every day in the capital and blamed what he called a premature easing of lockout measures in June.
“Patients have to wait hours on stretchers or are sent home. Even those with pneumonia are sent home because they can’t locate a place,” he said, adding that coVID-committed beds were now full.
The Department of Health, which divides instances by region into daily updates, not without delay for commenting.
According to a document reported through Reuters, Ankara’s provincial fitness authority has asked all hospitals to reserve 50% of clinical beds and all empty extensive care beds for COVID-19, and has called for delays in all elective surgeries and admissions to internal medicine.
In addition, the government reported that 63% of Ankara’s extensive care beds were occupied, while 50% of all hospital beds were occupied. “The pandemic is still in our province,” he says.
Chart – Coronavirus in Turkey match: here
Official figures mean that the new coronavirus killed another 5,765 people and set 234,934 on fire in Turkey, hitting the country 17th globally in reuters’ count of the total number of cases.
President Tayyip Erdogan’s government has prompted countries to allow tourists to return to Turkey to bring the economy to life, and Germany on Tuesday raised warnings for some Turkish regions.
Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said the accumulation in cases is basically because Americans ignore the rules.
In July, he posted a Twitter photo of enthusiasts watching a match with the question: “Did everyone hold their breath for 90 minutes?”
The government said Thursday would mark the maximum number of extensive inspections to date of markets, businesses, restaurants and public spaces.
Karakoc of Ankara Medical Group said the government could do more. “If you let other people aspire to look like public transportation, if you make appearance-like paints through the factories, other people won’t know when you let them know,” he says.
In Gaziantep, Ates Tarla said the government would likely increase the capacity of beds in COVID-19 sets by 25% to lose area earlier than expects it to be a build-up of infections two weeks after the holidays.
Edited through Jonathan Spicer and Mark Heinrich
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