Beijing, Mar 16: The coronavirus death toll in China rose to 3,213 with 14 new fatalities, while the imported cases climbed to 123 after 12 new infections were reported, prompting Beijing to make 14-day quarantine in special facilities compulsory for foreigners returning to the country.
As of Sunday, 14 new deaths were reported, taking the death toll due to the deadly virus to 3,213, China’s National Health Commission (NHC) said on Monday.
Sixteen new infections of the novel coronavirus on the Chinese mainland were reported in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of infections to 80,860, the health officials said.
Of those new infections, four were in Wuhan, capital of Central China’s Hubei province, the epicentre of the virus, and 12 were imported cases.
With a dozen fresh infections, the total number of imported cases has increased to 123.
Of the 12 imported cases, four were reported in Beijing, four in Guangdong Province, two in Shanghai and one each in Yunnan and Gansu provinces respectively, state-run Xinhua news agency reported on Monday.
Beijing’s local government has announced to send all international arrivals into the city to designated quarantine facilities from Monday as part of stepped-up measures against COVID-19 cases from abroad.
People arriving from abroad were previously allowed to undergo the mandatory two-week quarantine at home, but now only those in “special circumstances” will be exempted from being sent to facilities where they must pay for their stay, it said.
Till now, most of the foreigners, except from Italy and Iran, were asked to strictly follow two-week home quarantine supervised by local communities.
But since Monday, Beijing has made all foreigners to undergo quarantine at designated places mostly hotels at their own cost.
The NHC said 41 new suspected cases have been reported on Sunday.
Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan have reported a total of 217 confirmed cases, with four deaths in Hong Kong and one in Taiwan, it said.
In Hubei, the total confirmed cases reached 67,798 by Sunday midnight. Of them, majority were reported in Wuhan.
The province has seen a total of 3,099 fatalities, it said.
A total of 2,975 patients are still in critical condition in the province.
As of Sunday, Hubei saw no new confirmed COVID-19 case for 11 consecutive days in its 16 cities and prefectures outside its capital Wuhan.
Wuhan too has seen a single-digit daily increase for five days, indicating that the virus is stabilising in its epicentre.
Zheng Yun, deputy head of the Wuhan municipal health commission, on Sunday said although the city has seen single-digit daily increase of new infections for the past few days, there is still a certain risk of infection in communities based on epidemiological investigation and analysis as well as the law of infectious disease transmission.
