China's local COVID cases decline for 2nd day as Jilin outbreak grows at slower pace

Mainland China's new local symptomatic COVID-19 cases declined for a second consecutive day, official data showed on Thursday, as a flare-up in the northeast - the worst since China's first outbreak in 2020 centred on Wuhan - grew at a slower pace. China reported 1,226 new domestically transmitted COVID-19 infections with confirmed symptoms on March. 16, data from the National Health Commission showed, down from 1,860 a day earlier. It marks the fifth day of over 1,000 such cases on the mainland. China's current case wave is still tiny by global standards, but national officials have warned that virus control is becoming increasingly difficult with more than two dozen regions reporting infections recently