(Bloomberg) — Turkey’s Covid-19 death toll topped 10,000 Wednesday as the government barred public health workers from quitting or retiring amid a surge in coronavirus cases.
The ban applies to doctors, nurses and other health workers in the public sector and is meant to ensure an uninterrupted fight against Covid-19, the Hurriyet newspaper reported Wednesday, citing an order from the Health Ministry.
Turkey’s death toll rose by 77 to 10,027, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said, adding that the total number of confirmed patients stood at 368,513 as of Oct. 28. Koca said the Interior Ministry will start implementing an existing midnight ban on music at restaurants and cafes at an earlier hour in a bid to prevent the spread of the virus.
Turkey quietly stopped disclosing figures for all confirmed cases in July, instead only releasing numbers for symptomatic patients. Koca earlier this month told local media that Turkey would report complete figures to the World Health Organization.
