A recovered coronavirus patient, 83, is discharged from the Leishenshan Hospital in Wuhan, capital city of central China's Hubei province, Feb 18, 2020. (XIAO YIJIU/XINHUA)

BEIJING - Chinese health authority said Saturday it received reports of 99 new confirmed cases of novel coronavirus infection and 28 deaths on Friday on the Chinese mainland.

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The 28 deaths were in Hubei province, according to the National Health Commission.

Among the 99 cases, 25 were reported outside Hubei province, the epicenter of the outbreak.

Of them, 24 cases were imported from outside the Chinese mainland. The Chinese mainland saw a total of 60 imported COVID-19 cases as of the end of Friday, according to the commission.

A total of 1,678 patients were discharged from hospital after recovery Friday on the Chinese mainland.

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In total, 55,404 patients had been discharged from hospital by the end of Friday, the commission said in its daily report.   

By the end of Friday, a total of 80,651 confirmed cases of the COVID-19 had been reported on the mainland, and 3,070 people had died of the disease.