Imported coronavirus cases continue to rise

China continues to contend with an influx of imported cases of novel coronavirus as the pandemic rages beyond the county's borders, statistics from the National Health Commission shows.

A total of 45 new confirmed cases of coronavirus infection and five deaths were reported Saturday on the Chinese mainland, bringing the two numbers up to 81,439 and 3,300, respectively, the commission said on Sunday morning.

With only one locally transmitted case in Central China's Henan province, the rest of the infections were all imported cases detected from 15 provincial-level regions, the commission said.

South China's Guangdong province accounted for eight of the new imported cases, and Tianjin and Shanghai reported seven, along with four in Beijing, three in Liaoning, Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces and two in Sichuan province, it said.

The provinces of Shanxi, Jilin, Fujian, Jiangxi and Guizhou each reported one imported infection on Saturday, as well as Chongqing municipality and Inner Mongolia autonomous region. By the end of Saturday, a total of 693 imported cases of novel coronavirus infection had been reported,

With another 28 new suspected cases reported Saturday, a total of 174 people are still suspected of being infected with the virus, it added.

Also on Saturday, 477 people were discharged from the hospital after recovery, while the number of severe cases decreased by 179 to 742. A total of 75,448 people had been discharged from the hospital after recovery as of Saturday midnight.

Health authorities on the mainland have traced 701,884 people with close contact with patients, adding that among them, 1,097 were discharged from medical observation Saturday, with 18,581 others still under medical observation.

By the end of Saturday, 582 confirmed cases, including four deaths, had been reported in Hong Kong, 37 confirmed cases in Macao, and 283 in Taiwan, including two deaths. And 112 patients in Hong Kong, 10 in Macao and 30 in Taiwan have been discharged from hospitals after recovery.

Central China's Hubei province, the hard-hit region on the Chinese mainland, reported zero cases but saw five new fatalities in its capital, Wuhan, on Saturday. The latest report brought the number of total confirmed cases in the province to 67,801 and total deaths to 3,182.

The province also saw 467 patients discharged from the hospital after recovery on Saturday, bringing the total number of discharged patients in the province to 62,565, it said, adding that Hubei had zero suspected cases as of Saturday midnight.