Turkey’s Covid Stats Haven’t Been Including All Cases For Months

(Bloomberg) -- Turkey stopped announcing all of its coronavirus cases months ago and has instead been disclosing only the number of “patients” who test positive and show symptoms.

Health Minister Fahrettin Koca acknowledged the change on Wednesday, as he responded to an opposition lawmaker's claims that the government has been vastly understating the number of Covid-19 infections. His remarks outraged medical groups that have accused the government of fueling the country's outbreak.

The decision to stop counting people who are infected but don't need treatment was made because of the high number of asymptomatic cases detected by widespread testing, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. It was made shortly before the ministry on July 29 tweaked the wording in its Covid-19 updates to report new “patient” numbers instead of new “cases,” the person said, asking not to be identified discussing sensitive matters.

Turkey's Covid Wordplay Masks Extent of Outbreak, Lawmaker Says

Koca commented on the change in reporting standards after a lawmaker from Turkey's main opposition party cited data from test centers nationwide showing that infections were almost twenty times the official number. Koca rejected the figures presented by Murat Emir of the Republican People's Party, and said the current stage of the pandemic justifies shifting the emphasis from number of positive cases to patients.

His defense was assailed by medical groups that have long accused authorities of deflating the case count.

“We were saying this for six months. You have not managed this transparently. You have concealed the facts,” the Turkish Medical Association said in a statement addressing the minister. “You failed to prevent the spread of the pandemic.”

Rising Case Count

On July 29, Turkey reported 942 daily “patients,” down from the 963 “cases” reported a day earlier. By Sept. 10, new infections stood at 29,377, far more than the Health Ministry's “daily patient” count of 1,512 that day, according to Emir, the opposition lawmaker.

“The comparison is a stark display of why the ministry made the shift in July,” Emir said. “The positive case figure has surged so much that they've concocted this thing called ‘number of patients.'”

Official data show 318,663 people in Turkey have been identified as coronavirus “patients” since the outbreak began, with 8,195 deaths.

Turkish Doctors Dispute Official Count of Virus Infections

Turkey shut down much of its economy with curfews soon after the first confirmed case in March. Policy makers introduced a sizable stimulus program to mitigate the impact on economic activity while gradually reopening the economy from mid-summer.

Tourism suffered, with tens of billions of dollars of revenue lost at a time when Turkey badly needed foreign currency to shore up reserves. Gross domestic product in the second quarter shrank 9.9% from a year earlier, the most in over a decade.

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