Turkey releases weekly provincial COVID-19 statistics

Turkey's health minister announced early on March 16 infection rates of the novel coronavirus across Turkey's 81 provinces on March 6-12 as part of a new weekly initiative.

"Normalization can be possible by following the measures," Fahrettin Koca said on Twitter, sharing the statistics.

The number of cases per 100,000 people was 178 in the metropolis Istanbul, 68 in the capital Ankara, and 78 in the western Izmir province.

According to the data, Turkey's Black Sea province of Samsun had the highest number of cases with 458 per 100,000 people.

The southeastern Batman, Sirnak, Siirt, Sanliurfa and Hakkari provinces had the lowest COVID-19 infections per 100,000 people.

As of Monday, Turkey confirmed more than 2.89 million cases, 29,552 fatalities, and over 2.71 million recoveries.

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.