No explanation was given for the sudden decline, but it came a day after new national guidelines advised the province to only report two numbers in its overall count: confirmed and suspected cases, in line with how other provincial and national figures are reported.
(Feb 20): The number of new coronavirus cases reported by Hubei province dropped sharply after China changed the way it officially reports the number of infections for the second time in a month, raising questions over the reliability of data from the epicentre of the outbreak.
In its daily tally, Hubei said on Thursday that it had just 349 additional confirmed cases, compared with almost 1,700 additional cases from the day before.
