China sees slight rise in domestic COVID-19 cases

China has seen 16 domestically transmitted cases of COVID-19 over the past seven days, 11 more than the previous week, a health official said Friday.

Increased population flows and gatherings had contributed to the rising infections while the risk of imported cases still exists, Mi Feng, a spokesman of the National Health Commission, said at a press conference in Beijing.

Mi urged reducing non-essential public gatherings and maintaining containment efforts.

Citing the latest World Health Organization report, he said the daily new cases topped 80,000 globally for the first time.

Recent days have seen an increasing number of cases coming into China through land border ports, said Mi, urging enhanced testing and treatment capacity in border regions and port cities.