A medical worker from the Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University puts on a face shield for a colleague at the Wuhan-based Tongji Hospital in the Guanggu area of Wuhan, central China's Hubei province, Feb 20, 2020. (CAI YANG / XINHUA)
WUHAN/BEIJING - The total number of newly confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus has gradually decreased across China, showing a positive signal that the epidemic situation has improved, a health official said Friday.
Figures including new confirmed cases across the country, new confirmed cases outside Hubei province, and new confirmed cases in Wuhan, epicenter of the outbreak, as well as in other places of Hubei, have all been dropping gradually, said Zeng Yixin, deputy director of the National Health Comission, at a press conference.
The daily number of newly recovered patients has been rising rapidly to 2,109 on Thursday, surpassing that of new confirmed infections for the third consecutive day, Zeng said.
Thursday was the second consecutive day that the daily number of new infections remained under 1,000
Chinese health authorities said it received reports of 889 new confirmed cases of novel coronavirus infection and 118 deaths on Thursday from 31 provincial-level regions and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps.
Thursday was the second consecutive day that the daily number of new infections remained under 1,000.
Among the new fatalites reported, 115 were in Hubei province and one in Zhejiang, Chongqing and Yunnan, respectively, according to the commission.
Hubei, center of the novel coronavirus outbreak, reported 631 new confirmed cases and 115 new deaths Thursday, according to the provincial health commission Friday.
The new cases bring the total confirmed cases in the hard-hit province to 62,662. Wuhan, the provincial capital, had recorded a total of 45,346 confirmed cases.
A total of 1,451 patients were discharged from hospital, bringing the total number of discharged patients in the province to 11,788.
The data shows that the overall epidemic situation is developing toward a positive prospect nationwide, and the trend of the outbreak is under control.
Zeng Yixin, Deputy director, National Health Comission, China
The daily number of newly recovered patients in Wuhan surpassed the number of new confirmed infections for the first time, said Mi Feng, spokesperson for the National Health Commission.
The rate of recovery in Wuhan, other parts of Hubei and other provincial-level regions in the country has continued to rise in the past week, Mi said.
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No new confirmed cases were reported as of Thursday in 14 provincial-level regions and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps. The Tibet autonomous region in southwest China has reported zero new confirmed cases since Jan 30 and Qinghai province in the northwest has reported no new cases in 15 consecutive days.
Three provinces - Liaoning, Guizhou, Gansu - and the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region have reported zero new cases for four consecutive days and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps has reported no new cases for three consecutive days.
"The data shows that the overall epidemic situation is developing toward a positive prospect nationwide, and the trend of the outbreak is under control," said Zeng.
Noting that there are still many new deaths in the hard-hit Hubei and its capital city of Wuhan, Zeng stressed the need to continuously pay close attention to them.
We are encouraged by this trend but this is no time for complacency.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus , WHO director-general
READ MORE: Hubei sees big drop in new cases with 349 infections reported
Meanwhile, the total number of suspected cases of novel coronavirus infections has dropped in China, with fewer people still under medical observation, Zeng said.
A total of 1,614 new suspected cases were reported Thursday.
Outside Hubei, the daily number of suspected cases had dropped day by day across the country, from the peak of 2,211 on Feb 6 to Thursday's 335, Zeng said.
“We are encouraged by this trend but this is no time for complacency,” World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a briefing in Geneva.
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The overall confirmed cases on the Chinese mainland had reached 75,465 by the end of Thursday, and 2,236 people had died of the disease.
A total of 18,264 patients had been discharged from hospital by the end of Thursday, according to the commission.
The commission said a total of 5,206 people were still suspected of being infected with the virus, adding that 606,037 close contacts had been traced.
Meanwhile, the number of people still under medical observation has continued to decline in China. The number, which peaked at 190,000 on Feb 7, fell to 120,000 on Wednesday, according to Zeng.
By the end of Thursday, 68 confirmed cases including two deaths had been reported in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), 10 confirmed cases in the Macao SAR, and 24 in Taiwan including one death.
Five patients in Hong Kong, six in Macao and two in Taiwan have been discharged from hospital after recovery.
