406 new coronavirus cases, 52 deaths reported on mainland

A total of 406 new confirmed cases of novel coronavirus infections and 52 deaths were reported on Tuesday on the Chinese mainland, bringing the two numbers up to 78,064 and 2,715 respectively, the National Health Commission said Wednesday morning.

With the majority of the new confirmed cases coming from Hubei province, where the epidemic is the most severe, the rest of the country has seen the daily new infections remain in a downward trend and drop to five on Tuesday, according to the commission.

All the deaths were in Hubei province, it said, adding that another 439 new suspected cases were reported Tuesday, with a total of 2,491 people still suspected of being infected with the virus.

Also on Tuesday, 2,422 people were discharged from the hospital after recovery, while the number of severe cases decreased by 374 to 8,752. A total of 29,745 people had been discharged from the hospital after recovery as of Tuesday midnight.

Health authorities on the mainland have traced 647,406 people with close contact with patients, adding that among them, 14,573 were discharged from medical observation Tuesday, with 79,108 others still under medical observation.

By the end of Tuesday, 85 confirmed cases including two deaths had been reported in Hong Kong, 10 confirmed cases in Macao, and 31 in Taiwan including one death. And 18 patients in Hong Kong, seven in Macao and five in Taiwan had been discharged from the hospital after recovery.

Hubei province, the epicenter of the novel coronavirus outbreak, reported 401 new confirmed cases of viral infections and 52 new deaths on Tuesday. And the latest report brought the number of total confirmed cases in the hard-hit province to 65,187 and total deaths to 2,615.

Wuhan, the provincial capital, reported 370 new confirmed cases and 42 new deaths on Tuesday. In total, the city has registered 47,441 confirmed cases and 2,085 deaths.

The province also saw 2,058 patients discharged from the hospital after recovery on Tuesday, bringing the total number of discharged patients in the province to 20,912, it said, adding that Hubei had 2,067 suspected cases as of Tuesday midnight.