The National Health Commission also reported 508 new confirmed cases, with all but nine in hard-hit Hubei province.
It is up from yesterday’s (Feb 24) 409 cases nationwide.
Multiple provinces in China have reported zero new cases for several days in a row now, with the World Health Organization saying yesterday that the coronavirus epidemic has “peaked” in China.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the peak in China occurred between Jan 23 and Feb 2 and the number of new cases there “has been declining steadily since then”.
However, WHO expert Bruce Aylward, leader of a joint WHO-China mission of experts, warned yesterday of outbreaks in other countries “increasing at exponential growth rates”.
Despite a downward trend in new case numbers, China continues to struggle to resume normal activity after the virus brought the world’s second-largest economy to a standstill.
The country also decided to postpone its annual parliament session for the first time since the Cultural Revolution.
Tens of millions of people remain under lockdown in Hubei province, where the virus is believed to have originated late last year.
A slight easing of the lockdown in Wuhan, Hubei’s capital, was retracted shortly after being announced yesterday.
Outbreaks in prisons and hospitals have also raised further concerns about ineffective containment measures.
The Communist Party’s political and legal affairs commission said today that 323 coronavirus cases were reported in Hubei prisons by Sunday (Feb 23), including 279 in the Wuhan Women’s Prison.
Elsewhere, South Korea reported 60 more novel coronavirus cases on today, the smallest increase for four days in the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s morning updates.
The country now has 893 cases, the KCDC said - the largest national total anywhere outside China - adding one more person had died, taking the toll to eight.