Recovered COVID-19 patients say goodbye to doctors in Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province in April 2020. Photo: CFP

Shanghai, Guangzhou, Qingdao are among Chinese cities that have announced that local COVID-19 patients have all been discharged from hospital upon recovery as of Saturday, according to daily reports released by local authorities on Sunday.

Of all 349 locally transmitted COVID-19 cases in Shanghai, 342 have been discharged from hospital and no one is currently hospitalized, Shanghai health authorities announced on Sunday. There have been seven local fatalities in the city.

Along with Shanghai, other regions including Central China's Hubei Province, East China's Shandong, Jiangsu, Anhui provinces, Northwest China's Shaanxi Province all have no local patients hospitalized as of Saturday, based on the daily reports released by their respective authorities.

However, sporadic cases were still found around the nation, with cases in Beijing, Northeast China's Shenyang, Dalian and Southwest China's Chengdu, all found to have come from abroad after epidemiological investigation and virus gene sequencing analysis, according to Chinese authorities.

The National Health Commission reported eight locally transmitted cases on Sunday. Four cases were reported in Heilongjiang, two in Liaoning and one in Hebei and one in Beijing.

Earlier in November, Zhang Wenhong, China's leading infectious disease specialist and head of the Shanghai COVID-19 medical team, wrote on China's Twitter-like Sina Weibo that sporadic cases won't affect normal operations in China. 

Also, over one million people have already been vaccinated in China, and another 50 million people in high-risk groups will be inoculated by February 5 under a mass vaccination program. Zhang noted that China will have to face an increased risk of imported cases as more countries may relax border controls.

The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases on the Chinese mainland reached 87,117 by Saturday, with 82,088 patients discharged upon recovery. There are 395 patients still receiving treatment, said the National Health Commission on Sunday.