ANKARA – Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan and his wife tested positive for the Omicron variant of COVID-19.
“After experiencing light symptoms, my wife and I tested positive for Covid-19. We have a mild infection thankfully, which we learned to be the omicron variant,” the president said in a tweet. “We are on duty. We will continue to work at home. We look forward to your prayers.”
Leaders of his AKP ruling party, ministers and opposition leaders have wished him a speedy recovery.
The 67-year-old Turkish president made the announcement after virtually attending a tunnel-opening ceremony from Istanbul. The president showed no signs of illness in his televised appearance, said media reports.
Turkey has witnessed massive surge in the COVID-19 cases in recent days, with 111,157 cases reported by the Health Ministry on Friday.
In late December, the tally of daily cases was recorded at about 20,000 but have increase due to the highly transmissible omicron variant.
Turkey is also seeing a upward trend in fatalities due to COVID-19, with 248 deaths on Friday.
