Gansu downgrades public health emergency level

Northwest China's Gansu province has downgraded its emergency response to the novel coronavirus pneumonia from level one, which is the highest, to level three on Friday afternoon, as the province's efforts to prevent and control the contagion have yielded good results, according to an announcement by the province's leading office for coping with the disease.

This is the first province in the country to downgrade its level since 31 provincial-level regions nationwide activated level-one emergency responses.

China categorizes emergency responses to public health crises into four levels, with level one the highest, according to the scope and degree of the outbreak.

As of Thursday night, Gansu had a total of 91 confirmed cases of novel coronavirus pneumonia, including two deaths and 71 cases that had recovered and been discharged from hospitals, according to the Health Commission of Gansu.

Among the remaining 18 cases, which are in quarantine for treatment, there is one case in critical condition, it said.

The outbreak in the province has been eased, with the number of newly confirmed cases falling and no spread in rural areas, it was announced at a news conference on Thursday.

It added that patients in Gansu are relatively concentrated in certain areas and the recovery rate among them is relatively high.

The province has also divided its 87 counties and city districts into three categories in terms of an evaluation of the area's current disease situation.

A total of 75 fall into the category of low risk areas - there's no confirmed case or there are no newly confirmed cases for 14 consecutive days.

And 12 of the areas have moderate risk - there are newly confirmed cases in 14 consecutive days and the total number of confirmed cases is less than 50, or the total number exceeds 50 but there's no clustering of infections in 14 consecutive days, the commission said.