BEIJING — Here are the latest developments on the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in China:
— The 127th China Import and Export Fair will not be held on April 15 as scheduled, according to local authorities. The decision was made due to the current global situation of the COVID-19, especially the high risk of imported cases.
— Authorities are allowing real estate companies to resume production in batches in Wuhan, capital of Central China's Hubei province. The government supports these companies to conduct online and offline marketing activities in an orderly manner to power the housing sector's stable and healthy development.
— Local police stations will resume window services "in an orderly manner" in Hubei province to meet public need for registration-related affairs and to guarantee resumption of work and production in society.
— A total of 115 A-level tourist attractions reopened to the public, with strict epidemic prevention and control measures, by noon of March 23 in Hubei province.
— East China's Zhejiang province, one of the hard-hit regions by the COVID-19 epidemic, further downgraded its emergency response to the novel coronavirus outbreak to the third level.
Meanwhile, the province on March 23 tightened quarantine rules for inbound passengers to curb cross-border spread of the novel coronavirus. The province demanded all people traveling to Zhejiang from abroad, regardless of their nationalities and whether they come directly to the city or via other cities, be put under centralized quarantine for 14 days.
— Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region reopened all elementary and high schools on March 23, the first provincial-level region in the country to do so amid the coronavirus epidemic.
The reopening came after the region had reported no new cases of coronavirus infection for 34 days as of March 22.
— Clinical observation showed that traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has proven to be effective in the treatment of over 90 percent of all confirmed COVID-19 cases on the Chinese mainland. A total of 74,187 COVID-19 patients, or 91.5 percent of the total confirmed cases on the Chinese mainland, have received TCM treatment
— Over 4,900 medics from TCM hospitals and institutions across China have been sent to aid the epidemic fight in Hubei. "The scale and strength of the TCM aid team are unprecedented," said Yu Yanhong, Party chief of the National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine.
— No new domestically transmitted cases of the COVID-19 were reported on the Chinese mainland on March 22. Wuhan, the hardest-hit city in Hubei province, has not reported new cases for five days in a row as it is recovering from the epidemic.
— The National Health Commission received reports of 39 new confirmed COVID-19 cases on the Chinese mainland on March 22, all of which were imported. Hubei registered no new COVID-19 cases on March 22.
— Beijing and Shanghai both reported 10 new confirmed cases of the COVID-19 from other countries on March 22.
— Also on March 22, nine deaths and 47 new suspected cases were reported on the mainland with all of the deaths from Hubei province.
A total of 459 people were discharged from the hospital after recovery on March 22, while the number of severe cases decreased by 96 to 1,749.
The overall confirmed cases on the mainland had reached 81,093 by the end of March 22, including 5,120 patients who were still being treated, 72,703 patients who had been discharged after recovery, and 3,270 people who died of the disease.
— By the end of March 22, 317 confirmed cases including four deaths had been reported in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), 21 confirmed cases in the Macao SAR, and 169 in Taiwan including two deaths.
A total of 100 patients in Hong Kong, 10 in Macao and 28 in Taiwan had been discharged from the hospital after recovery.
