BEIJING, Feb. 25 (Xinhua) -- China has stepped up efforts to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. Here are the latest developments:
-- Chinese health authority said Tuesday it received reports of 508 new confirmed cases of novel coronavirus infection and 71 deaths on Monday from 31 provincial-level regions and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps by the end of Monday, bringing overall confirmed cases and total deaths on the mainland to 77,658 and 2,663, respectively.
-- Hubei Province, the epicenter of the novel coronavirus outbreak, reported 499 new confirmed cases of novel coronavirus infection and 68 new deaths on Monday, the provincial health commission said Tuesday.
-- China's daily new confirmed cases of COVID-19 outside Hubei Province, epicenter of the outbreak, dropped to nine on Monday, according to the National Health Commission.
-- China's daily number of newly cured and discharged novel coronavirus patients has surpassed that of new infections for the seventh consecutive day, according to the National Health Commission Tuesday.
Monday saw 2,589 people walk out of hospital after recovery, the National Health Commission said in its daily report. A total of 27,323 patients infected with the novel coronavirus had been discharged from hospital after recovery by the end of Monday, Chinese health authority said Tuesday.
-- China's unprecedented public health responses to the COVID-19 outbreak have yielded notable results in blocking human-to-human transmission of the virus, preventing or at least delaying hundreds of thousands of cases, said a joint expert team consisting of experts from China and the World Health Organization.
The assessment was given at a press conference on Monday in Beijing after the 25-member team conducted a nine-day field study trip in China.
