Fears of a second wave
BEIJING • China registered five new coronavirus cases on Mon-day, down from 16 a day earlier, the National Health Commission said yesterday.
All of the new Covid-19 cases were so-called imported infections from travellers overseas. Among them, two were reported in Sic-huan province, and one each in Shanghai, Guangdong and Shaanxi.
No deaths related to the disease or new suspected cases were reported on Monday.
The mainland also reported 10 new asymptomatic cases - those who are infected with the virus but do not show symptoms - compared with 16 a day earlier, the health commission said.
China does not count these asymptomatic carriers as confirmed cases.
The country's total number of confirmed cases now stands at 83,022, while the death toll remains unchanged at 4,634.
On Monday, eight people were discharged from hospital upon recovery from the disease. Seventy-three patients remain in hospitals for treatment, according to the health commission.
A total of 1,761 confirmed cases were considered imported infections. Of them, 63 remained hospitalised. No deaths from the imported cases have been reported.
Meanwhile, the city of Wuhan - where the first coronavirus cases were reported late last year - found no new cases of Covid-19 but 300 asymptomatic carriers after testing most of its 11 million residents, city officials said yesterday.
The authorities launched the ambitious, citywide testing campaign on May 14 and reached 9.9 million people, after a cluster of new cases raised fears of a potential second wave of infections.
But they found no new coronavirus infections in the campaign that ran until Monday, officials told reporters in a briefing.
They said the asymptomatic carriers had been found not to be infectious, with no traces of the virus detected on items used by the 300 people, such as masks, toothbrushes and phones, nor on door handles and elevator buttons that they had touched.
The central Chinese city, which is the capital of Hubei province, was placed under a stringent lockdown on Jan 23. This was lifted on April 8.
Wuhan was the hardest hit of any Chinese city and accounts for the majority of the coronavirus deaths reported in the country.
The cost of the citywide testing effort was about 900 million yuan (S$177 million).
China's coronavirus cases have dwindled dramatically from their peak in mid-February, but there have been some small, sporadic outbreaks since then and the authorities remain vigilant in order to prevent any new wave of infections from emerging.
REUTERS, XINHUA
