HARBIN — More provinces in China have further downgraded their emergency response toward the COVID-19 outbreak as the epidemic is receding in the country.

The provinces of Sichuan and Heilongjiang decided to lower their emergency response to the novel coronavirus outbreak from the second level to the third level on March 25.

A number of provincial-level regions, including Zhejiang and Chongqing municipality, have recently downgraded their emergency response to the third level, while Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region lowered its emergency response to the lowest fourth level starting from March 22.

The move comes as the coronavirus outbreak, which first broke out in Central China's Hubei province, is receding across the country. No new domestically transmitted cases of the disease were reported on the Chinese mainland on March 24, and all the 47 new confirmed COVID-19 cases were imported.