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 Turkey eased most coronavirus-related restrictions on July 1 after
daily cases tumbled from a peak above 60,000 in April to around
5,000, but Koca said new figures pointed to a rise.
"These increases have emerged more in places where the level of
inoculations is low," Koca told reporters after a cabinet meeting on
Monday, noting rising cases in provinces of southeast Turkey.
He called on people to get vaccinated and said that around 61% of
the adult population had received at least one dose of vaccine. He
has set a target level of 70% by the time of the Eid al-Adha holiday
next week.
Turkey has reported 5.5 million COVID-19 cases and 50,000 deaths in
total. A vaccination programme has ramped up to around a million
shots per day in recent weeks, with 38 million receiving at least
one dose out of a population of 84 million.
Turkey's vaccine programme began in January with shots developed by
Sinovac and now also includes vaccines by Pfizer and Biontech, and
Russia's Sputnik V.
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 Delta variant cases have now been recorded in 36
provinces, up from 30 a week earlier, while a
total of three Delta Plus cases have been
registered, Koca said.
The ministry was not proposing new restrictions
and while there was currently no new wave of
cases, this could not be ruled out, with the way
to avoid this being increased vaccinations, he
said.
He added that he did not want to make
vaccinations compulsory and the ministry instead
aimed to convince people to get inoculated, with
plans to increase mobile inoculation teams.
(Reporting by Yesim Dikmen; Writing by Daren
Butler; Editing by Dominic Evans)
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