Beijing: China reported on Sunday a rise in new virus cases to 648, bringing mainland China's total number of confirmed infections to 76,936.
The daily death toll fell slightly to 97. In all, 2,442 people have died in the country from COVID-19.
The number of new cases has seesawed daily but remained under 1,000 for the past four days. Several changes to how the infections are counted, however, have made it difficult to draw conclusions from the figures.
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The central Chinese city of Wuhan and other parts of Hubei province, where the outbreak first emerged in December, remain under lockdown. More than 80% of the country's cases are in Hubei, where the death toll has also been higher than in the rest of the nation.
China's Politburo, made up of senior officials of the ruling Communist Party, cautioned Friday that while the epidemic has been "preliminarily contained," the country has yet to see a turning point.
Officials signaled that regular activities should gradually resume after the virus prompted an extension of last month's Lunar New Year holiday. Many workplaces have opted to have their employees work remotely, and schools are conducting online classes in place of physical ones.
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(With inputs from AP)
