First being recorded late last year in China, the COVID-19 coronavirus has spread around the world sending billions of people into lockdown. Declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization, the number of positive cases in China was initially the highest and had become the worst-affected region.

However, the daily infections have fallen dramatically from the peak of the epidemic in February, when hundreds were reported daily. Though the number of cases continues to appear daily, it did not seemingly pose any threat to the Chinese government. But now it looks like, China is in trouble again as the cases are again slowly increasing despite drastic containment efforts.

On Sunday, Mainland China had reported 39 new coronavirus cases as of Sunday, while the previous day recorded 30. This time, China's chief concern is the increase in the number of people who showed no symptoms of illness. The National Health Commission said in a statement on Monday that 78 new asymptomatic cases had been identified as of the end of the day on Sunday, compared with 47 the day before. Reportedly, the government is taking measures to identify and isolate the asymptomatic patients.

Mainland China has now reported a total of 81,708 cases, with 3,331 deaths.