Deaths from COVID-19 expected to fall, health expert says
AS TURKEY continues its fight against the COVID-19 pandemic with rising vaccination numbers, an expert said that he expects the number of deaths to decrease gradually amid predictions coronavirus cases will drop toward the end of this month.
Professor Mustafa Necmi İlhan, a member of the Health Ministry’s Coronavirus Scientific Advisory Board, said the number of COVID-19 cases in Istanbul has started to decrease. “I think there may be a downward trend in Anatolia as well. Cases may drop toward the end of this month. I expect the deaths to decrease gradually,” he told Demirören News Agency (DHA) on Monday.
Pointing out that the cases in Istanbul have decreased significantly, İlhan
said: “The alpha variant first started in Istanbul. The population is larger, living conditions are more crowded, (the city is) more open to external influences. At the moment, the case numbers in Istanbul have dropped. In Ankara, they are at a certain level, maybe it will come back down soon,” he said.
“About one to two months after the cases drop, we witness that the number of deaths decreases more rapidly. On average, the number of our citizens who usually die is at the level of 250, unfortunately, we saw 300 deaths,” he added.
“The deceased are mostly over the age of 65, have chronic diseases, are unvaccinated or have not completed their vaccination. If we lived in an unvaccinated society with such high cases, the death toll would have gone even higher.”
“Of course, because the probability of infection increases more, there may be those who are unintentionally infected, those who have a severe illness and those who die. The level of antibody formation is not at the same level for every person, especially when we consider that there are citizens who do not have the third dose. It should be said that the effect (of the vaccine) on people is not the same,” said Ilhan, pointing out that the risk for society increases since the omicron variant is more contagious.
Speaking about the antiviral COVID-19 drug Molnupiravir, now being used for patients over 65 years of age and high-risk people over the age of 18, İlhan said: “A new drug has come into play in our country. This is a very pleasing development. But let’s say that, beyond getting the coronavirus disease and being treated, it is much more important not to catch the coronavirus at all, and it is very important to be vaccinated in order not to catch it.”
END OF MASK MANDATE POSSIBLE
İlhan also said Sunday that in some countries, several practices that can help protect society have been implemented.
“In my personal opinion, people can protect both themselves and other people by wearing masks in crowded places, such as public transportation, cinemas and theaters. Besides, people seem to be able to walk around without a mask in less crowded places. Of course, it would be more accurate to see the numbers and the trend and evaluate accordingly,” he added.
COVID-19 CASES AT MONTHLY LOW
The Health Ministry reported 70,355 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, the lowest single-day count of COVID-19 cases in one month.
According to a chart shared by the Health Ministry, 263 people lost their lives and 91,164 others recovered from the disease over the past day. Also, as many as 440,183 virus tests were done nationwide in the past 24 hours.