<span style="color: #333333;">China continued to record a steady rise in COVID-19 cases on Saturday as it completes a year since the central Chinese city of Wuhan went into lockdown on 23rd January 2020, where the novel coronavirus was detected in late 2019. The National Health Commission said 206 new COVID-19 cases had been identified in the mainland on Saturday including 99 asymptomatic cases out of which, 90 new cases were local infections. The new more infectious U.K. strain has also been detected in at least four cities. This comes just before the Lunar New Year festivities, when migrant workers all over China expect to head home to celebrate the holiday with their families. The movement involving some 200 million people, is humanity's biggest annual migration. Authorities are wary of a new surge surrounding next month's Lunar New Year holiday and have urged people not to travel and to avoid gatherings as much as possible. State employees have been expressly forbidden from traveling over the holiday. Many schools have already shifted to online classes. Beijing launched mass COVID-19 testing in some areas on Friday and Shanghai was testing all hospital staff as China faced its worst novel coronavirus outbreak in many provinces since March. China also reported its first cluster of cases among workers in a meat processing plant in Harbin on Friday, the capital of Heilongjiang, raising consumer concerns.<br />''</span><br />'' <span style="color: #333333;">The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in mainland China stands at 88,911, while the death toll remains at 4,635. Wuhan accounted for the most of China's 4,635 deaths from Covid-19, a number that has mostly stayed static for months. Wuhan shut down transport networks and suspended outgoing flights on Jan. 23, 2020, in an attempt to cut off transmission of the virus. China on Friday released a documentary film to mark the anniversary of the Wuhan lockdown, part of a broader effort to showcase China's early response to COVID-19 in a positive light after some suggestions, which authorities reject, of an initial delay. Wuhan city has been largely free of further outbreaks since the lockdown was lifted on April 8, but international community and scientists debated as to where the virus originated and whether Wuhan and Chinese authorities acted fast enough and with sufficient transparency to allow the world to prepare for a pandemic that has infected more than 98 million.<br />''</span><br />'' <span style="color: #333333;">A panel of experts commissioned by the World Health Organization (WHO) criticized China and other countries this week for not moving to stem the initial outbreak earlier, prompting Beijing to concede that it could have done better. After months of negotiations, China finally gave permission last week for the WHO to send a team of international experts to begin investigating the virus's origins. They are currently undergoing two weeks of quarantine.<br />''</span><br />'' <span style="color: #333333;">Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, thousands of residents were locked down on Saturday in an unprecedented move to contain a worsening outbreak in the city. Hong Kong has been grappling to contain a fresh wave of the coronavirus since November. More than 4,300 cases have been recorded in the last two months, making up nearly 40% of the city's total.<br />''</span><br />'' <span style="color: #333333;">The government is handling the resurgence with trademark strictness. More than 23 million people have been ordered to remain inside their homes in northern China to control new outbreaks'double the number confined in Wuhan when the pandemic first erupted. A temporary quarantine center capable of housing 4,000 suspected cases has been put up outside the city of Shijiazhuang, bordering the capital Beijing. The government has meanwhile set a target to vaccinate 50 million people before the Lunar New Year holiday in mid-February, and has so far managed to inoculate over 10 million.</span><br />''  <br />