Chinese authorities declare national mourning on Saturday to commemorate those who died of COVID-19

The Chinese State Council decided on Friday to declare Saturday a national mourning day to commemorate those who lost their lives to the COVID-19 outbreak in the country.

"The State Council decided to hold national mourning events on April 4 to express deepest condolences of our multinational people over the 'fallen heroes,' who sacrificed their lives to fight the epidemic of the novel coronavirus, as well as the deceased compatriots," the State Council said in a statement.

On Friday, China registered 29 new imported cases of COVID-19 and two cases of internal transmission in the last 24 hours, with 4 new death due to the illness.

The total number of imported COVID-19 cases in China has reached 870.

"The National Health Commission received information about 81,620 confirmed cases of pneumonia caused by a new type of coronavirus from 31 provinces [regions and municipalities], including 1,727 currently ill people. 379 people are in critical condition, 3,322 have died, 76,571 people have been discharged from hospitals," the commission said in a statement.

No new cases of the coronavirus have been registered in the province of Hubei, where the city of Wuhan - the epicentre of the pandemic - is located.

The World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic on March 11.

The global tally of the total number of people infected by coronavirus as of Friday crossed 1,000,000 and the death toll from the disease exceeded 50,000, as per the data provided by Johns Hopkins University.