SHANGHAI (Reuters) -Mainland China recorded 20 new COVID-19 cases on Dec. 25, compared with 14 cases the previous day, the country’s health authority said on Saturday.
The National Health Commission said in its daily bulletin that 12 of the new cases were imported. Of the eight locally transmitted cases, six came from the northeastern province of Liaoning and two from the capital Beijing.
The new Beijing cases were from its Shunyi district, which has entered a “wartime state” requiring all residents to undergo testing, the state-owned China Daily reported on Saturday.
The People’s Daily reported five people had tested positive after nucleic acid tests were carried out across Beijing’s districts of Chaoyang, Shunyi and Tianzhu on Saturday.
Additionally, 19 asymptomatic cases were reported on Dec. 25, up from 17 the previous day. China does not include asymptomatic patients in its total confirmed case list.
China has now reported a total of 86,933 confirmed mainland cases, with 4,634 deaths.
(Reporting by Emily Chow; Editing by William Mallard and Mike Harrison)
