China reports 626 new COVID-19 cases
SHANGHAI: China reported 626 new coronavirus cases for July 27, of which 119 were symptomatic and 507 were asymptomatic, the National Health Commission said on Thursday.
That compared with 703 new cases a day earlier -120 symptomatic and 583 asymptomatic infections, which China counts separately.
There were no new deaths, keeping the nation’s death count at 5,226.
As of July 27, mainland China had confirmed 229,185 cases with symptoms.
China’ s capital beijing reported no new local cases for the third straight day, the local government said.
The southern technology hub of Shenzhen reported 12 new local infections, compared with four a day earlier.
Of Wednesday’s local infections, four were confirmed to be symptomatic, while eight were asymptomatic,the shenzh en health commission said.
Of the new Shenzhen cases, all except one were found in quarantined areas.
Shanghai reported 11 new domestic ally transmitted asymptomatic coronavirus cases for July 27, down from 14 a day earlier, while local symptomatic cases were three, up from two the day before, the city government said on Thursday.
No cases were reported outside quarantined areas, compared with one the day before. Shanghai recorded no Covid-19-related deaths for July 27, unchanged from a day earlier.
The World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday welcomed new studies concluding that COVID-19 first emerged at an animal market in China’s Wuhan, but insisted it was too early to rule out other theories.
“All hypotheses remain on the table,” WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan told reporters from the UN health agency’s Geneva headquarters.
Solving the mystery of where th es ar scov -2 virus came from and how it began spreading among humans is viewed as vital to averting future pandemics.
The two main theories that have been hotly debated since COVID-19 first surfaced in China in late 2019 have centred on the virus naturally spilling over from bats to an intermediary animal and into humans or escaping due to a lab accident.
Two peer-reviewed studies published in Science Tuesday claimed to have tipped the balance in the debate about the virus’s origins, concluding it must have been introduced naturally through the wildlife trade at the Wuhan market. The first paper analysed the geographic pattern of COVID-19 cases in the outbreak’s first month, December 2019, showing the first cases were tightly clustered around Wuhan’s Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market.