Citing China’s National Health Commission (NHC), media reports say no COVID-19-related deaths were reported in China on Tuesday (Apr 7), the first time since it started publishing daily figures in January.

No new confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) were reported Monday in central China's Hubei Province, the Health Commission of Hubei said Tuesday, according to Xinhua.

The province reportedly saw no new death of the disease on Monday.

Xinhua says fifty-nine COVID-19 patients were discharged from hospital after recovery Monday.  Among the 518 patients being treated in hospital, 111 were still in severe condition and 73 others in critical condition.

Hubei has so far reported 67,803 confirmed COVID-19 cases in total, including 50,008 in Wuhan.

Cases in mainland China have been dwindling since March, but the country faces a second wave of infections brought in from overseas.

It reported 32 new cases on Monday, down from 39 cases a day earlier.

All of the cases reported on Monday involved travelers arriving from overseas, bringing the overall number of imported infections so far to 983, the health authority said in its statement.

China has shut its borders to foreigners as the virus spread globally, though most imported cases have involved Chinese nationals returning from overseas. International flights have been slashed to around 3,000 a day in April from the tens of thousands previously.

According to NHC, the total number of confirmed cases in mainland China has stood at 81,740 as of April 6, with 3,331 fatalities.

CNN, citing Johns Hopkins University, says the novel coronavirus has infected more than 1.27 million people and killed over 69,000 worldwide as of April 6. 

The United States is hit hardest by the novel coronavirus.  According to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University, the number of COVID-19 cases in the United States topped 350,000 as of 3:30 p.m. local time Monday (1930 GMT).

The fresh figure reached 352,546 with 10,389 deaths, according to the CSSE.