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Factbox: China's fight against novel coronavirus outbreak

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E-mail Xinhua, February 12, 2020

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BEIJING, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- China has stepped up efforts to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. Here are the latest developments:

-- Chinese Vice Premier Sun Chunlan has urged Hubei Province and its capital city of Wuhan to make greater efforts and take more decisive measures to resolutely win the battle against the novel coronavirus epidemic.

-- The city of Huanggang, one of the hardest-hit cities in the epidemic-stricken Hubei Province, has added 17 designated hospitals. The city now has 30 designated hospitals, 127 fever clinics and 10 testing institutions that can conduct more than 900 tests a day.

-- Eighty-three percent of cluster outbreaks of the novel coronavirus infection occurred among family members, said Wu Zunyou, an epidemiology expert at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention at a press conference Tuesday.

-- The Standing Committee of the Provincial People's Congress of central China's Hubei Province on Tuesday decided to appoint Wang Hesheng as the new director of the provincial health commission.

-- Wuhan has mobilized more than 34,000 officials, government workers and Communist Party of China members into its 1,100 communities to fight the epidemic, including 16,700 employees of government units and state-owned enterprises as well as 17,700 members of the Communist Party of China.

-- China's tax watchdog has unveiled a guideline to reduce financial pressure in key sectors amid the battle against the novel coronavirus outbreak. The guideline, involving 12 detailed items, came after a string of tax policies rolled out last week to support epidemic prevention and control, supplies, donation and work resumption.

-- A total of 560,000 health workers in China's vast rural areas have taken online courses on the novel coronavirus epidemic to enhance their skills in epidemic control as of Monday, an official with the National Health Commission said Tuesday.

-- China will help workers return to work and move hiring online to counter the impact of the novel coronavirus outbreak on employment.

China's Ministry of Transport released a circular Tuesday to ensure safe and smooth transportation for migrant workers returning to work.

-- Production of medical and daily necessities such as masks and protective suits is steadily recovering in China to support the prevention and control of the epidemic.

More than 76 percent of mask production capacity in China's 22 provincial regions had been resumed by Monday and 77 percent of protective suit production had been resumed.

China is the world's largest mask producer, with more than 20 million masks made daily in normal times.

About 94.6 percent of the country's major grain production and processing firms have resumed production, as have 57.8 percent of the coal mines.

-- The first batch of 28 patients who had recovered from novel coronavirus pneumonia were discharged from a gymnasium-converted makeshift hospital on Tuesday afternoon in Wuhan, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak.

-- The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the country's biggest lender, said Tuesday that it has issued over 43 billion yuan (about 6.14 billion U.S. dollars) of loans to fight the novel coronavirus outbreak and help companies restore production since Jan. 24.

-- China's National Health Commission said on Tuesday that it received reports of 2,478 new confirmed cases of novel coronavirus infection and 108 deaths on Monday from 31 provincial-level regions and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps.

By the end of Monday, a total of 1,016 people had died of the disease and 42,638 confirmed cases had been reported on the Chinese mainland.

-- A total of 3,996 patients infected with the virus had been discharged from hospital after recovery by the end of Monday.

-- Central China's Hubei Province, the hardest-hit province, reported 2,097 new confirmed injection cases and 103 new deaths on Monday. The figure is 521 fewer than the new confirmed cases reported on Sunday.

Hubei's capital city of Wuhan reported 1,552 new infections and 67 new deaths.

-- Beijing, Tianjin, Heilongjiang, Anhui and Henan each reported one new death.

New confirmed cases of novel coronavirus pneumonia outside Hubei Province totaled 381 on Monday, dropping for the seventh consecutive day.

-- Wuhan rolls out stricter measures to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus: suspected cases with mild symptoms should be quarantined and those with fever be treated nearby; all residential communities will be closed.

The city aims to finish testing all suspected cases of novel coronavirus infection by Tuesday.

-- The China Development Bank has granted emergency loans worth 20.4 billion yuan on Monday to enterprises in the manufacturing and purchasing of virus prevention and control supplies and daily necessities, and constructors of the two makeshift hospitals in Wuhan. Enditem