⁍ Doctors in Turkey’s coronavirus hotspots say hospitals are filling up with more cases than are reflected in the official nationwide count.

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⁍ Intensive care units (ICUs) and emergency rooms in hospitals set aside for COVID-19 patients are at capacity in the capital Ankara and the southeastern city of Gaziantep.

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⁍ Official figures indicate the new coronavirus has killed 5,765 people and infected 234,934 in Turkey.

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– The death toll from Turkey’s new coronavirus—which has killed more than 5,000 and infected more than 234,934 in the country, putting it 17th globally—has jumped above 1,000, and doctors say hospitals are running out of space. The chief of the Gaziantep-Kilis Medics’ Chamber tells Reuters a single hospital in the region logged 200 new cases in one day this week, with the infectione rate among health workers especially high. Ali Karakoc, general secretary of Ankara’s Medics’ Chamber, says around 1,000 people test positive for the virus daily in the capital, which he blames on the lifting of a partial lockdown in June. “Patients are being made to wait on gurneys for hours or are being sent home,” he says. “Even those who have pneumonia are sent home because they cannot find a place.” A document seen by Reuters shows that Ankara’s provincial health authority requested all hospitals set aside 50% of clinic beds and all empty ICU beds for COVID-19, and asked for delays in all elective surgeries and admissions for internal medicine. In July, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca posted a photo on Twitter of tightly packed soccer fans watching a game with the question: “Did everyone hold their breath for 90 minutes?” The government said Thursday it would mark the most intensive inspections to date of marketplaces, businesses, restaurants, and other public areas. Karakoc of the Ankara medics group said the government could do more. “If you let people sit side by side on public transportation, if you make them work shoulder to shoulder in factories, people will ignore it when you warn them.”