BEIJING (Reuters) - China’s central province of Hubei, excluding the provincial capital Wuhan, has reported no new cases of coronavirus over 24 hours for the first time in the outbreak, as authorities seek to stem imported infections in other areas. 

Wuhan, the centre of the epidemic, reported 126 new confirmed cases on Thursday but there were no new infections elsewhere in the province, the National Health Commission said on Friday.

Elsewhere in China, schools in provinces reporting no new cases for a number of days started to set reopening dates.

Qinghai, a northwesterly province that had reported no new infections for 29 days as of March 5, said it would stagger the start date of different schools between March 11 and March 20, according to a notice posted on an official website.

The southwesterly province of Guizhou has said its schools would start reopening from March 16.

Outside of Hubei, there were 17 new confirmed cases, bringing the total new infections in mainland China to 143 on Thursday, up from 139 cases a day earlier.

Of the 17 new cases, 16 were imported from outside China - 11 in Gansu province, four in Beijing and one in Shanghai.

A total of 311 passengers arriving at Gansu’s provincial capital Lanzhou from Iran were quarantined, state television reported late on Thursday.

Beijing’s four new cases had come from Italy. On Friday, one of the city’s government officials described its epidemic control campaign as being at its most challenging period, adding that roughly 827,000 people who had returned to the capital from outside - most of them from extended Lunar New Year holidays - were currently undergoing home observation.

Last month, Gansu became the first province to lower its emergency response measures from level I - the most serious level on a four-tier system - to level III, reflecting the lack of new infections.

Tibet became the latest region to lower its emergency response level on Friday, announcing on an official website that some areas had eased to level II and others to level III.

OPTIMISM FOR WUHAN

Health authorities in Shanghai said that the city had recorded three new cases in the first 12 hours of Friday. All were Chinese nationals who had studied in Iran, state media reported.

All three had been transferred by Shanghai customs to quarantine on March 3, a spokeswoman for the city’s health commission told a news briefing.

Despite the fresh cases in Wuhan, senior Chinese government officials expressed optimism about its situation as the city shut its second makeshift hospital on Friday afternoon, state radio reported.

“As the situation in Wuhan and Hubei improves, relevant authorities, with approvals, will make timely adjustments according to China’s Infectious Diseases Law and public health emergency regulations,” Ding Xiangyang, vice secretary general at the State Council, told a news briefing.

“When I went out in the morning, the cherry blossoms were blooming in front of my door, telling us that winter has passed and spring has come. I think the day everyone has been looking forward to is not far away.”

As new cases dwindle in China, attention has turned to potential infections arriving from overseas.

Authorities in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong have all vowed to quarantine travellers from countries hit the hardest by the coronavirus, which Beijing identified as South Korea, Japan, Iran and Italy.

China’s transport ministry on Friday said it had asked all maritime management agencies to work with customs to prevent the virus from spreading at ports, and to especially pay attention to ships sailing from South Korea and Japan.

The latest: COVID-19 outbreak worldwide (Updated March 6)

Travelers wear protective mask as they walk through Terminal 5 at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, US, March 1, 2020. (Photo: AP)

There have been 14,770 confirmed cases of the COVID-19 outside China, with over 267 deaths, statistics from the World Health Organization (WHO) showed Friday.

In the past 24 hours, 2098 newly confirmed cases outside China have been reported and five new countries/territories/areas (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Gibraltar, Hungary, Slovenia, and occupied Palestinian territory) have reported cases of COVID-19, according to WHO statistics.

The latest figures reported by each government's health authority as of March 6, 2020.

Data sources: WHO, Xinhua, AFP, CGTN, the Iranian Ministry of Health, the Japanese Ministry of Health, Welfare and Labor, the French Ministry of Health and the Consulate General of China in Barcelona

South Korea confirmed 518 more cases of COVID-19 on Friday (as of 2pm BJT), raising the total number of infections to 6,284, according to the Yonhap News Agency.

Italy reported a total of 107 deaths of COVID-19 and the total number of infections reached  3858 on Friday (as of 2pm BJT).

The novel coronavirus has now claimed 107 lives out of more than 3,513 cases in Iran on Friday (as of 2pm BJT).

France reported a total of 7 deaths of COVID-19 and the total number of infections reached  423 on Friday (as of 2pm BJT).

The US' death toll from the COVID-19 rose to 12 on Friday (as of 2pm BJT). Nationwide, there are 163 confirmed cases.

China faces rising risk of imported COVID-19 cases: official

A woman tourist, wearing a protective mask, walks on Piazza Duomo in Milan, Italy on Tuesday. (Photo: AFP)

Chinese health authorities said Friday that China must not relax its vigilance or lower the level of work in epidemic prevention and control as the number of imported cases of novel coronavirus disease increases.

The Chinese mainland reported 17 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Thursday outside Hubei Province, the epicenter of the outbreak, said Mi Feng, an official with the National Health Commission, at a press conference.

Of them, 16 cases, including 11 in Gansu, four in Beijing and one in Shanghai, were imported from outside the mainland, said Mi.

"We should continue to deepen international cooperation, share information and experience with the World Health Organization and relevant countries in a timely manner, and jointly fight the epidemic," Mi added.

The mainland had seen a total of 36 imported COVID-19 cases by Thursday, according to the commission.

Shanghai on Friday reported three more imported cases of COVID-19 by noontime from Iran, and Shenzhen in Guangdong Province on Friday reported the city's second imported case, from Spain, bringing the total number of imported infections to 40 nationwide.

While China's efforts to prevent and control the coronavirus have scored remarkable effects, new warnings are being issued overseas with ascending numbers of infections reported every day, making the risk of imported outbreaks in China an urgent issue.

Officials from East China's Zhejiang Province said on Friday it will put preventing imported cases of COVID-19 as a top priority. Zhejiang so far reported 1,215 cases of coronavirus infection as of Friday morning, within which 10 cases were of foreign origin.

In addition to countries that are being haunted by coronavirus which include Italy, Iran, South Korea and Japan, China should also pay attention to other countries including Kuwait, Bahrain, Thailand and Cambodia, and also parts of Europe, Wang Peiyu, associate dean of the School of Public Health at Peking University, told the Global Times.

There are two major ways to prevent imported cases, Wang said. "One is to conduct strict temperature checks and register past travel history at the time of entry. And the other is to urge citizens to avoid going to countries with major outbreaks."

Over a period of 24 hours on March 2, there were a total of 420 flights between China and 32 countries, including 85 flights between China and South Korea, and the flight conducting rate was down to 23.10 percent, according to a flight chart sent to the Global Times by domestic aviation data provider Feeyo Technology Co.

There were only two round-trip flights between China and Iran during the same period, 57 between China and Japan, and 17 between China and the US. Other countries have more flights operating China routes including Thailand with 83 flights, Cambodia with 41 and Malaysia with 19.

Data also showed that from February 25 to Tuesday, the majority of flights arriving in China from South Korea landed in Beijing, Qingdao in East China's Shandong, Shenyang in Northeast China's Liaoning, and Yanji in Northeast China's Jilin. Most flights from Japan arrived in cities including Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou in South China's Guangdong and Dalian in Liaoning.

Domestic airports have strengthened the management of arrivals from countries and regions with severe epidemic situations, according to documents the Global Times obtained from several airports.

For instance, the Xiamen airport requires all airlines to register, collect data from passengers and screen all those who have been to countries including Japan, South Korea, Iran, Italy and Singapore in the past 14 days. Zhejiang's airport requires airlines to inform destination airports in advance of transited flights from Japan, South Korea, Iran and Italy, as imported infections have recently entered China via transit locations like Moscow airport.

Currently, China faces several battlefields as it is a highly globalized economy and it is impossible to ban all visitors from entering, Chen Xi, an assistant professor of public health at Yale University, told the Global Times.

"The most important task is to quickly identify risks at the entry point. The government can also consider requisitioning some facilities near major airports for the purpose of implementing quarantines for passengers with higher risks," Chen said.

On Thursday, the number of new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in China was 143 (126 in Hubei, the epicenter of the outbreak), while the WHO reported on Thursday (local time) that a total of 14,768 new cases of the coronavirus had been confirmed in 85 countries outside China, with a total of 267 deaths. Statistics from National Customs showed that by 12 pm on Thursday, a total of 6,728 passengers entering China had shown symptoms, of whom 779 became suspected cases and 75 later tested positive for the virus through nucleic acid testing.

Source(s): Reuters, by Andrew Galbraith, Zoey Zhang; People's Daily app; CGTN;chinadaily.com.cn; https://www.shine.cn; Xinhua; Global Times

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