BEIJING — No new cases of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) were reported on Feb 25 in 26 of 31 provincial-level regions on the Chinese mainland, according to health authorities on Feb 26. 

The Chinese mainland reported a total of 406 new COVID-19 cases on Feb 25, including 401 in Hubei, one in Shandong, Shanghai and Hebei each and two in Sichuan, showed figures released by the National Health Commission (NHC) and local health authorities.

The number of new cases outside Hubei, the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak, was down from nine on Feb 24 and 11 on Feb 23.

China's southernmost island province of Hainan on Feb 26 joined a number of other provincial-level regions in lowering their emergency responses to COVID-19 after reporting no or few new cases in the past week.

The response level of the tropical province was lowered from the first level, the highest in a four-tier response system, to the third level starting at 5 pm on Feb 26, according to local authorities.

Mi Feng, a spokesperson for the NHC, told a daily press conference on Feb 26 that the Chinese mainland excluding Hubei on Feb 25 reported no new deaths from COVID-19 and a decrease of 25 in the existing number of severe cases

The number of cured and discharged COVID-19 patients across China is continuing to rise thanks to the increased force of medical professionals and the improved treatment methods in the battle, Mi said.

"In the next step, on the basis of procedure-based follow-up tracking and checking of discharged patients' health status, we will step up analysis of recovered cases and sum up relatively mature diagnosis and treatment methods so as to provide experience and technical support for follow-up patients treatment and the COVID-19 control in relevant countries," he said.