FILE PHOTO: People wearing face masks walk on a bridge in Wuhan, Hubei province, the epicenter of China’s coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, March 28, 2020. REUTERS/Aly Song
BEIJING (Reuters) – Mainland China reported 31 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, including one locally transmitted infection, the country’s National Health Commission said, dropping from 45 cases a day earlier.
The commission said in a statement on Monday that four new deaths were reported, putting the cumulative death toll from the coronavirus outbreak in the mainland at 3,304 at the end on March 29. Total number of infections to date rose to 81,470.
Hubei province, where the coronavirus outbreak first emerged in late 2019, reported no new cases for the sixth consecutive day on Sunday after the province of 60 million people lifted its traffic restrictions and resumed some domestic flights to other parts of China.
The northwestern province of Gansu reported a new case on Sunday of a traveller from Hubei who drove back with a health code declaring the person free of virus, however.
Although the number of new infections in China has fallen sharply compared with the peak of the outbreak in February, Beijing remains worried about the risk of a second wave of the epidemic triggered by cases involving travellers coming to China who were infected overseas.
China has barred foreigners from entering the country and ordered airlines to slash the number of international flights into the country. The vast majority of the so-called imported cases reported to date have been Chinese nationals, many of whom are students.
Reporting by Se Young Lee and Lusha Zhang in Beijing and Josh Horwitz in Shanghai; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Lincoln Feast.