March 21: Daily briefing on novel coronavirus cases in China

On March 20, 31 provincial-level regions and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps on the Chinese mainland reported 12 new cases of confirmed infections (all were imported cases, 4 in Shanghai municipality, 3 in Gansu province, 2 in Tianjin municipality, 1 in Inner Mongolia autonomous region, 1 in Jiangxi province and 1 in Guangdong province), 2 new cases of suspected infections (both were imported cases in Shanghai), and no deaths. 9 patients were released from hospital after being cured. 370 people who had had close contact with infected patients were freed from medical observation. The number of serious cases remained unchanged.

As of 24:00 on March 20, 31 provincial-level regions and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps on the Chinese mainland had reported 5,195 cases of imported confirmed infections and no deaths. In all, 5,032 patients had been cured and discharged from hospital. There still remained 163 confirmed cases (no cases in serious condition) and 4 suspected cases.

As of 24:00 on March 20, the National Health Commission had received reports of 90,099 confirmed cases and 4,636 deaths in 31 provincial-level regions and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps on the Chinese mainland, and in all 85,298 patients had been cured and discharged from hospital. There still remained 165 confirmed cases (no cases in serious condition) and 4 suspected cases. 985,138 people had been identified as having had close contact with infected patients. 3,321 were still under medical observation.

On March 20, 31 provincial-level regions and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps on the Chinese mainland reported 8 new asymptomatic cases (all were imported cases). 16 asymptomatic cases were freed from medical observation (all were imported cases) and 4 (imported cases) became confirmed cases. As of 24:00 on March 20, 238 asymptomatic cases were still under medical observation (all were imported cases).

As of 24:00 on March 20, 12,424 confirmed infections had been reported in the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions and Taiwan province: 11,371 in Hong Kong (203 had died and 10,863 had been cured and discharged from hospital), 48 in Macao (47 had been cured and discharged from hospital) and 1,005 in Taiwan (10 had died and 961 had been cured and discharged from hospital).