For the first time since January, China has reported zero new COVID-19 deaths. Despite ongoing struggles with outbreaks in Wuhan, only 62 cases were reported across the whole country in the last 24 hours.
On Tuesday, the National Health Commissioner said that out of these new cases, 30 were asymptomatic and 32 were arrivals from other countries. The lack of deaths is good news for the country but both China and Hong Kong will still move to strengthen restrictions on foreign arrivals.
To date, over 1.3 million people around the world have been diagnosed with COVID-19. Nearly 75,000 have died and over 287,000 have recovered.
At the end of last month, authorities in Wuhan began to ease restrictions on citizens who have endured months of lockdown designed to curb the spread of the virus. As the number of infected dropped, the government designated some 7,000 residential complexes in the city “epidemic free” and allowed residents to leave their homes for two hours at a time. Travel restrictions were due to be lifted tomorrow, allowing people to leave the city.
Yesterday, the Xinhua news agency said that 45 of the compounds had their permission revoked due to the emergence of asymptomatic cases. Chinese authorities had previously not counted asymptomatic cases in their records, despite figures estimated to be as high as 18-31%.
China has reported 81,740 cases and 3,331 deaths. Cases in the country have been dropping since March but there are concerns of a “second wave” of the virus due to infections coming from abroad. As a response, the government said they would increase measures at land borders as well as airports. They also said they would extend their ban on foreigners entering or transiting the country.
