Showing a continuously positive trend, China only saw 36 new novel coronavirus infections occurring in Wuhan, Hubei province on Sunday, as well as four new confirmed cases in Gansu province, according to the National Health Commission.

A total of 40 new confirmed cases of coronavirus infection and 22 deaths were reported on Sunday on the Chinese mainland, bringing the numbers up to 80,735 and 3,119 respectively, the commission said Monday morning.

With the bulk of new confirmed cases coming from Wuhan, the Chinese mainland outside Hubei only reported 4 daily new infections, all of which were imported cases in Gansu province.

By the end of Sunday, a total of 67 imported cases of novel coronavirus had been reported, the commission said.

Apart from one death in Guangdong province, the remaining new fatalities occurred in Hubei province, it said, adding that with another 60 new suspected cases reported Sunday, a total of 421 people are still suspected of being infected with the virus.

Also on Sunday, 1,535 people were discharged from hospital after recovery, while the number of severe cases decreased by 153 to 5,111. A total of 58,600 people had been discharged from hospital after recovery as of Sunday at midnight.

Health authorities on the mainland have traced 674,760 people with close contact with patients, adding that among them, 3,802 were discharged from medical observation on Sunday, with 20,146 others still under medical observation.

By the end of Sunday, 114 confirmed cases including three deaths had been reported in Hong Kong, 10 confirmed cases in Macao, and 45 in Taiwan including one death. And 59 patients in Hong Kong, 10 in Macao and 15 in Taiwan have been discharged from hospital after recovery.

Hubei province, epicenter of the outbreak, also maintained an overall downward trend of new daily infections, reporting 36 new confirmed cases of the virus along with 21 new deaths on Sunday.

The latest report brought the number of total confirmed cases in the hard-hit province to 67,743 and total deaths to 3,007.

All new infections in the province occurred in Wuhan, the provincial capital, with 18 new deaths on Sunday. In total, the city has registered 49,948 confirmed cases and 2,388 deaths.

The province also saw 1,422 patients discharged from hospital after recovery on Sunday, bringing the total number of discharged patients in the province to 46,433, it said, adding Hubei had 277 suspected cases as of Sunday.