Health officials in China's Hubei province have announced an additional 394 confirmed cases of novel coronavirus and 114 more deaths.
The update, which occurred Thursday in China, brings the number of total deaths in mainland China to 2,118, with more than 74,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases.
While the overall spread of the virus has been slowing, the situation remains severe in Hubei province and its capital, Wuhan, where the new coronavirus was first detected in December.
More than 80% of the country's cases are in Hubei and 95% of the deaths. The new daily figure is a notable drop from the 1,749 cases recorded the previous day. Inspectors are going door-to-door in the city to find every infected person.
Meanwhile, an extraordinary two-week quarantine of the Diamond Princess cruise ship is ending in Japan. Japan's health ministry says 2 elderly cruise ship passengers who were hospitalized with viral infection have died.
With more than 540 cases of COVID-19, the ship has more infections than anywhere outside China. Experts still aren't sure how the quarantine failed.
U.S. officials announced Tuesday that Americans who remained on board, or are in hospitals in Japan, will have to wait 14 days before they're cleared to fly back to the United States.
If anyone from the ship arrives back in the U.S. before that 14-day period ends, they'll have to undergo a 14-day mandatory quarantine, the CDC explained.