China's daily local symptomatic COVID cases nearly double to 402

Mainland China reported 402 locally transmitted COVID-19 infections with confirmed symptoms for March. 9, official data showed on Thursday, nearly doubling from the daily count a day earlier. Of those, 165 were in the northeastern province of Jilin, the National Health Commission said in a statement. That marks the highest daily count for the province since China contained its first national outbreak in early 2020. The number of new domestically-transmitted asymptomatic cases, which China does not classify as confirmed cases, was 435, a near two-year high.