Turkey's Erdogan tests negative for coronavirus, due to end isolation

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has tested negative for Covid-19 for the past two days and is expected to return to his normal schedule, his doctor announced on Thursday.

Erdogan, 67, had been working from his residence since testing positive for the virus on 5 Feb. His wife, Emine, also contracted the virus.

“I believe that our president will return to his routine schedule very soon — even tomorrow,” his doctor, Serkan Topaloglu, told the state-run Anadolu Agency.

Topaloglu said the president was free of any Covid-19 symptoms, while his wife was still displaying mild symptoms in the form of an “upper respiratory infection.”

Turkey has seen record levels of Covid-19 cases in recent weeks, with 108,563 new infections reported by the Health Ministry on Wednesday. In late December, daily cases stood at about 20,000 but have risen due to the highly transmissible omicron variant.

Erdogan, a former semi-professional soccer player, underwent surgery on his lower intestine in 2011. He maintains a busy schedule, often giving multiple speeches a day.