New coronavirus cases at record low in many parts of Australia

Many parts of Australia have registered record low in new COVID-19 patients, with some states even reporting nil case in the last 24 hours.

Australia has so far reported 6,619 coronavirus cases, including 71 deaths. As many as 4,258 patients have been recovered, while nearly 50 are still in the intensive care units of various hospitals across the country.

Three states -- South Australia, Western Australia and Queensland -- have reported zero cases in the past 24 hours, health officials said.

While Queensland and Western Australia reported no new diagnoses of COVID-19 for the first time in more than two months, South Australia has recorded its third consecutive day of zero new coronavirus cases despite an "unprecedented" number of tests.

Over 5,000 COVID-19 tests were conducted between Thursday and Sunday in South Australia, where the total number of coronavirus cases remains at 435.

While the number of coronavirus cases in Queensland stood at 1019, the tally was 545 in Western Australia.

New South Wales (NSW) confirmed 19 new cases of coronavirus on board the Ruby Princess cruise ship, while Victoria recorded just one case on Sunday.

The Australian Capital Territory (ACT), which houses Canberra, confirmed only one new diagnosed case on Monday, the first in the last six days.

The Northern Territory's case number has also remained low at just 28 cases, with no new reported cases in the past few days.

On Sunday, Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne questioned China's transparency in handling of the novel coronavirus and demanded an international investigation into the origins of the virus and how it spread.

"I think it's fundamental that we identify and determine an independent review mechanism to examine the development of this epidemic, its development into a pandemic, the crisis that is occurring internationally," she said.

"We need to know the sorts of details that an independent review would identify for us about the genesis of the virus, about the approaches to deal with it, and address it, about the openness with which information was shared, about interaction with the World Health Organisation and other international leaders," Payne said.

China has come under increasing global pressure, including from the US, over lack of transparency in its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, which has so far infected over 2,423,498 people and claimed more than 166,041 lives across the world.

Payne said it is clear that the virus originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan, and most likely in the wet market.

"And we have expressed our concerns about the opening up of wildlife wet markets in that context," she said.

Even as Wuhan emerges from its 76-day lockdown last week, the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, where the first cluster of COVID-19 was detected in December, remains shuttered and heavily guarded.

However, Wuhan's other wet markets are now back in business as residents adjust to a new normal.