ANKARA (AA) – Anadolu Agency is here with a rundown of the latest developments on the coronavirus pandemic and other news in Turkey and around the world.
– Coronavirus and other developments in Turkey
Turkey has so far administered over 29 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines since it launched a mass vaccination campaign in mid-January, according to the Health Ministry’s count.
More than 16.58 million people have received their first doses, while over 12.48 million have been fully vaccinated.
The ministry also confirmed 6,493 new coronavirus cases, including 596 symptomatic patients, across the country in the last 24 hours.
Turkey eased some public gathering restrictions aimed at curbing the spread of coronavirus as the vaccination drive continues.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that curfew hours are revised as between 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. on weekdays and Saturdays in June. A full lockdown will be imposed on Sundays until further notice.
Meanwhile, Turkey and Greece agreed to recognize each other’s COVID-19 vaccine certificates, the foreign ministers of the two countries announced on Monday.
Beating expectations, Turkey’s economy expanded 7% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2021 amid economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, the country’s statistical authority said on Monday.
– COVID-19 updates worldwide
Over 1.9 billion coronavirus vaccine shots have so far been administered worldwide, figures compiled by Our World in Data, a tracking website, showed on Monday.
China leads the global count with 639.17 million jabs, followed by the US with 294.93 million.
While efforts to produce its own vaccine are ongoing around the world, Iran is set to roll out its first indigenously developed vaccine for coronavirus, COV-Iran Barakat, next week after the third and final clinical trial.
Soberana-02 vaccine, jointly developed by Iran and Cuba, has also completed its third clinical trial and is ready for industrial line production.
Meanwhile, Pakistan Monday said the country would vaccinate 70 million people against coronavirus by the end of this year.
– Other global developments
US actor Joe Lara, best known for starring in the American TV series Tarzan: The Epic Adventures, died over the weekend along with six other passengers in a plane crash in the state of Tennessee.
China on Monday further relaxed its family planning policy and allowed couples to have three children, according to Global Times.
The Chinese government has taken the decision to improve its population structure and counter the country’s aging population problem.
Somalia’s breakaway region of Somaliland held its long-awaited parliamentary and local elections on Monday.
The parliamentary elections were held more than a decade late, whereas the municipal elections should have taken place four years ago.
Also, on Monday, authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina discovered a new mass grave containing bone remains estimated to belong to civilians killed during the 1992-1995 Bosnian War.
A 12-year-old Palestinian child was run over by Israeli police in East Jerusalem’s Silwan neighborhood for placing the Palestinian flag on his bicycle while riding to a nearby grocery to buy bread.
“I was on my bike to buy bread when three Israeli policemen chased me because I put the [Palestinian] flag on the bike,” Jawad al-Abbasi said in a report he provided to the Hadassah Hospital where he has been receiving treatment.
Source: Anadolu Agency
