Turkey Accused of Misrepresenting COVID-19 Case Numbers

Critics of the Erdogan government claimed the true infection tally was 20 times higher than reported. (Needpix)

Criticism of the Turkish response to the COVID-19 pandemic has grown since the revelation of the health ministry’s failure to report all positive cases. The Turkish government announced on October 3 that it has only reported symptomatic COVID-19 cases and has not included asymptomatic cases in the daily count. 

The official case count in Turkey remained, on average, between 1,500 and 1,700 new cases per day during September. As of Friday, October 2, the country, which has a total population of 82 million, had officially reported 321,512 confirmed patients and 8,325 deaths. 

The health minister, Fahrettin Koca, clarified the distinction between symptomatic and asymptomatic COVID-19 cases by stating that everybody “should … know that not every case is a patient, because there are those who have tested positive but are showing no symptoms at all.” This practice has seemingly gone on since July 29. 

The admission comes as a response to the criticism against the Turkish government’s handling of the pandemic by the Turkish opposition leader, Murat Emir, a member of the Republican People’s Party (CHP). He claimed on Twitter that the true number of cases likely stands twenty times higher than the official count. 

The Turkish Medical Association (TTB) condemned the government’s decision to only report symptomatic patients:  “Patients and cases are the same thing in the science of medicine. Don’t play with our health and our minds!”

The TTB has contradicted the government several times throughout the pandemic and criticized the choice to only report symptomatic cases. However, since March, the Turkish government has investigated doctors and scientists discussing the government’s handling of the pandemic and COVID-19 information. 

The Turkish government filed a criminal complaint against Kayıhan Pala, a member of the TTB’s COVID-19 monitoring department and a public health expert at Uludağ University, this April. The government accused him of creating panic by misinforming the public. 

Pala challenged the filing, arguing that his job requires him to speak about the public health crisis. In response, the prosecutors involved the administrators of his university, which resulted in a months-long investigation. The university concluded on September 1 that Pala had operated within his rights as a researcher. 

The government has attempted to prevent several other scientists from discussing COVID-19. In April, the Ministry of Health declared that research related to the pandemic had to receive governmental approval, in an apparent attempt to prevent independent researchers from gaining free access to COVID-19 data. 

The World Health Organization (WHO) has also criticized Turkey’s decision to only count symptomatic patients, urging Ankara to comply with UN guidelines and “harmonise data collection and response measures.” WHO’s official definition of confirmed cases includes both symptomatic and asymptomatic positive cases.