BEIJING, Feb. 20 (Xinhua) -- Chinese health authority Thursday said it received reports of 394 new confirmed cases of novel coronavirus infection and 114 deaths on Wednesday from 31 provincial-level regions and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps.

Among the deaths, 108 were in Hubei Province and one in Hebei, Shanghai, Fujian, Shandong, Yunnan and Shaanxi, respectively, according to the National Health Commission.

In Hubei, 349 confirmed cases were reported Wednesday, including 615 in the provincial capital Wuhan, epicenter of the outbreak, with 279 clinically diagnosed cases in the province's 10 other cities reduced from the overall calculation as the patients tested negative, the commission said.

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China last week revised the diagnosis criteria for confirmed novel coronavirus cases, counting any suspected cases with pneumonia-related CT scan results as clinically diagnosed cases.

Nationwide, another 1,277 new suspected cases were reported Wednesday, said the commission.

Also on Wednesday, 1,779 people were discharged from hospital after recovery, while the number of severe cases decreased by 113 to 11,864.

The overall confirmed cases on the Chinese mainland had reached 74,576 by the end of Wednesday, and 2,118 people had died of the disease.

The commission added that 4,922 people were still suspected of being infected with the virus.

A total of 16,155 people had been discharged from hospital after recovery.

The commission said 589,163 close contacts had been traced, adding that among them, 25,318 were discharged from medical observation Wednesday, with 126,363 others still under medical observation.

By the end of Wednesday, 65 confirmed cases including two deaths had been reported in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), 10 confirmed cases in the Macao SAR, and 24 in Taiwan including one death.

Five patients in Hong Kong, six in Macao and two in Taiwan have been discharged from hospital after recovery.

(Photo: Xinhua)