China has reported 11 cases of new viruses

Mainland China reported 11 new cases of COVID-19, up from 12 the previous day and the lowest daily increase since Dec. 16.

The National Health Commission said in a statement on Sunday that only one of the new cases had been referred locally, and it was located in Jilin Province, northeast China.

The number of new asymptomatic cases, which China does not classify as confirmed cases, has reached 13, including 11 imported cases.

The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in China now stands at 89,692, while the death toll has not changed at 4,636.

Sinovac Biotech said Saturday that its vaccine has been officially approved for use by the general public by China’s medicinal product regulator.

It was the second vaccine to receive global approval after an injection developed by the Beijing Institute of the state-owned China National Medicines Group (Sinopharm) that was approved in December.

Before approval, both vaccines were already used in the Chinese vaccination program that is mainly targeting key groups believed to be at increased risk of exposure to the virus.

In a press release, Sinovac said that Indonesia, Turkey, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Uruguay and Laos have granted emergency permits for the CoronaVac vaccine developed by Sinovac Life Sciences.

Senovac said the approval is based on the results of two months of advanced clinical trials abroad, for which the final analysis data has not yet been obtained.