COVID-19: 55 new confirmed cases recorded

The Chinese mainland reported a total of 55 new confirmed cases of COVID-19, 54 of which were imported and one from Zhejiang province, on Thursday, bringing the total number of confirmed patients to 81,340, the National Health Commission said on Friday.

The Shanghai municipality and Guangdong province received the bulk of the imported cases of the day, accounting for 17 and 12 cases, respectively.
Beijing and Tianjin each counted four imported cases, followed by Zhejiang province, Fujian province and Inner Mongolia autonomous region, with each reporting three cases.

Shandong and Yunnan provinces each recorded two new imported cases, and provinces such as Liaoning, Jiangsu, Sichuan and Shaanxi each recorded one.
Five new fatalities were reported on Thursday and they all came from Hubei province, bringing the national total deaths to 3,292, commission said. The mainland also saw an increase of 49 new suspected cases on Thursday, none of which occurred in Wuhan, the hardest-hit city in China.

On Thursday, 537 patients were discharged from hospitals, pushing the total number of recovered patients nationwide to 74,588. The nation still has 2,896 confirmed cases, including 999 patients in severe conditions. Most of the remaining confirmed cases and severe patients are in Wuhan.

The commission said the mainland has traced 697,470 people with close contact with patients as of Thursday, and 16,005 of which are still under medical observation.

As for the special administrative regions, Hong Kong reported 453 confirmed cases with four deaths, and Macao reported 33 cases with no deaths. The Taiwan region currently has 252 confirmed patients with two deaths.