THE national health authority said yesterday that it received reports of 42 new confirmed COVID-19 cases on the Chinese mainland Tuesday, including 22 that were domestically transmitted and 20 imported.

All the domestically transmitted cases were asymptomatic cases from Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region that were recategorized as confirmed cases, according to the National Health Commission and Xinjiang’s health commission.

The 22 cases were reported in Shufu County of south Xinjiang’s Kashgar Prefecture, the local health commission said yesterday, adding that 19 new asymptomatic cases were also reported Tuesday.

Xinjiang has completed COVID-19 testing for all 4.75 million people in Kashgar on Tuesday and 183 residents tested positive, local officials said Tuesday.

Apart from the 183 cases, all the remaining population tested negative in Kashgar, said Li Linyu, Party chief of the Kashgar prefectural health commission at a press conference.

Li said investigations have shown the new cases have no relation to the cluster in the regional capital of Urumqi in July and source tracing for the new cases in Shufu is under way.

The National Health Commission said in its daily report that no new suspected cases or new deaths related to the disease were reported, .

Of the new imported cases, seven were reported in Shanghai, six in Shaanxi, two in Guangdong, and one each in Tianjin, Hebei, Inner Mongolia, Henan and Sichuan, the commission said.

On Tuesday, eight COVID-19 patients were discharged from hospitals after recovery on the Chinese mainland.

By the end of Tuesday, a total of 3,284 imported cases had been reported on the mainland. Of them, 3,017 had been discharged from hospitals after recovery, and 267 remained hospitalized. No deaths from the imported cases had been reported.

As of Tuesday, the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases on the mainland had reached 85,868. Of them, 298 patients were still being treated, including four in severe condition.

Altogether 80,936 patients had been discharged after recovery, and 4,634 had died of the disease on the mainland, the commission said.

There was no suspected COVID-19 case on the mainland, while 9,907 close contacts were still under medical observation after 500 were discharged Tuesday, according to the commission.

Also on Tuesday, 38 new asymptomatic cases, including 19 arriving from outside the mainland, were reported, while 24 asymptomatic cases, including two from outside the mainland, were recategorized as confirmed cases.

The commission said 570 asymptomatic cases, including 408 from outside the mainland, were still under medical observation.

By Tuesday, 5,308 confirmed cases, including 105 deaths, had been reported in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), while 46 cases had been reported in the Macao SAR, and 550 cases, including seven deaths, in Taiwan.

A total of 5,053 COVID-19 patients in Hong Kong, 46 in Macao and 502 in Taiwan had been discharged from hospitals after recovery.

(Xinhua)