The recent COVID-19 epidemic in China is stabilizing, but cross-regional transmission remains frequent and the fight to achieve the goal of dynamically clearing infections remains tough, a health official said on Tuesday.

Wu Liangyou, deputy director of the National Health Commission's Bureau of Disease Prevention and Control, said during a news briefing the mainland had registered over 497,000 infections from March 1 to Monday, affecting all 31 provincial-level regions except the Tibet autonomous region.

Daily cases in Shanghai remain at a high level and the risk of the novel coronavirus' spread in communities is high, he said.

Outbreaks in Jilin and Changchun cities in Jilin province — also hit hard by the virus — are both trending downward, but precaution against flare-ups should not be relaxed, he added.

Wu urged local governments to step up health monitoring and nucleic acid testing of key groups to catch early signs of the virus's spread and safeguard the bottom line of preventing large-scale virus resurgence.