China reports no new domestic coronavirus cases for second day

No new domestic coronavirus cases were confirmed in China for the second consecutive day even as three more fatalities have been reported, taking the death toll in the country to 3,248, the Chinese health authority said on Friday.

No new domestically transmitted cases of the novel coronavirus disease were reported on the Chinese mainland on Thursday, the National Health Commission (NHC) said.

China achieved a new milestone in its efforts to contain the spread of the COVID-19 in the last three months by reporting zero cases on Wednesday.

However, the NHC said on Friday that it received reports of 39 newly confirmed COVID-19 cases on the Chinese mainland on Thursday, all of which were imported taking the total of confirmed cases of people coming from abroad to 228.

Of them, 14 were reported in the Guangdong Province, eight in Shanghai, six in Beijing and three in the Fujian Province. Provincial-level regions of Tianjin, Liaoning, Heilongjiang, Zhejiang, Shandong, Guangxi, Sichuan and Gansu each reported one case.

Also on Thursday, three deaths and 31 newly suspected cases were reported on the mainland with two of the deaths reported in the Hubei Province and the third one reported in the Liaoning Province.

The overall confirmed cases on the mainland had reached 80,967 by the end of Thursday. This included 3,248 people who died of the disease, 6,569 patients still being treated and 71,150 patients discharged after recovery, the NHC said.

On Thursday, 730 people were discharged from the hospital after recovery, while the number of severe cases decreased by 178 to 2,136, it said.

The NHC said 104 people were still suspected of being infected with the virus, while 8,989 close contacts were still under medical observation.

By the end of Thursday, 208 confirmed cases including four deaths had been reported in Hong Kong, 17 confirmed cases in Macao and 108 in Taiwan including one death, it said.