BEIJING — Here are the latest developments on the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in China:
— Beijing reported five new confirmed cases of COVID-19 from other countries over the past 12 hours by the noon of March 21, the municipal health commission said.
Among the imported cases, three were from Britain, one from Spain and one from France. That brought the total number of imported cases in the city to 89.
— China's Guangdong has required people arriving in the province from other countries to be quarantined for 14 days as the number of imported cases continues to rise.
— Facing a sharp increase of COVID-19 cases from abroad, China will take strict measures to prevent imported cases, said a spokesperson for the National Health Commission.
— More than 1,000 migrant workers departed their hometown in Hubei for the city of Hangzhou in East China after the virus outbreak situation eased across Hubei province.
— A freight train carrying donated face masks and other anti-coronavirus supplies departed Yiwu city in East China for Madrid, Spain.
— The Jack Ma Foundation and Alibaba Foundation said they will donate medical supplies to another 10 countries in Asia to assist their fight against the novel coronavirus.
A total of 1.8 million masks, 210,000 COVID-19 testing kits, 36,000 pieces of protective suits and other materials like ventilators and forehead thermometers will be delivered to Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Laos, Maldives, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
— The city of Fuqing, East China's Fujian province, will ship 700,000 donated face masks to countries including Italy, Britain, and Japan to help overseas Chinese fight COVID-19.
— Shenyang, capital of Northeast China's Liaoning province, will donate 10,000 disposable masks and 500 protective suits to the city of Braga, Portugal, said the municipal foreign affairs office.
— No new domestically transmitted COVID-19 cases were reported on the Chinese mainland for the third day in a row on March 20, the National Health Commission said.
— The overall confirmed cases on the mainland had reached 81,008 by the end of March 20, including 6,013 patients who were still being treated and 3,255 people who died of the disease.
— No new infections or suspected cases of the novel coronavirus were reported on March 20 in Wuhan, marking three days in a row of zero report at the epicenter of the epidemic.
— The National Health Commission received reports of 41 newly confirmed imported COVID-19 cases on the Chinese mainland on March 20. Of them, 14 were reported in Beijing, nine in Shanghai, seven in Guangdong province and four in Fujian province. By the end of on March 19, 269 imported cases had been reported.
— Seven deaths and 36 new suspected cases were reported on the mainland with all of the deaths reported in Hubei province.
— On March 20, 590 people were discharged from hospital after recovery, while the number of severe cases decreased by 173 to 1,963.
— By the end of March 20, 256 confirmed cases including four deaths had been reported in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), 17 confirmed cases in the Macao SAR, and 135 in Taiwan including two deaths.
— A total of 12 types of nucleic acid testing kits and eight types of antibody testing kits for COVID-19 gained approval for clinical use, Feng Luzhao, a researcher with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said on March 20.
— Procuratorial organs across the country prosecuted 1,712 suspects in 1,416 cases related to the COVID-19 epidemic by March 19, according to the Supreme People's Procuratorate. A total of 2,481 suspects had been arrested for epidemic-related crime cases.