Manzhouli, a border city in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, reported nine new locally-transmitted cases of COVID-19 between 7 a.m. Wednesday and 7 a.m. Thursday, the regional health commission said.

One suspected COVID-19 case and one asymptomatic case, were also registered during the same period in the city. Five patients were discharged from hospitals.

Epidemiological surveys into the cases are underway and 443 close contacts have been put under quarantine.

The sampling for city-wide nucleic acid testing has been completed. As of Thursday, a total of 203,326 people were sampled for nucleic acid tests.

As of 7 a.m. Thursday, Inner Mongolia had 11 locally-transmitted confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 12 imported ones.