Hebei province has stepped up efforts to prevent infections at designated hospitals for treating COVID-19 patients and centralized quarantine centers, as the province's daily counts of new cases continues to decline.

The province reported five new local confirmed COVID-19 cases and two asymptomatic carriers on Monday, the first day with a single-digit rise for confirmed patients since Jan 4, the Hebei Health Commission said on the morning of Jan 26.

Management at designated hospitals and fever clinics should be further enhanced to prevent infections inside the hospitals, while staff members at centralized quarantine centers where close contacts of confirmed COVID-19 patients live should be trained to avoid infection, top officials said at a meeting on Monday night.

All the new cases are in Shijiazhuang, and two of whom are from Gaocheng district, the worst-hit place in the province. One lived in Zhengding county but had been to Gaocheng on Jan 2, while the rest are from a dormitory in Chang'an district.

The province also discharged 33 local COVID-19 patients and 13 asymptomatic carriers from hospitals and medical observation on Monday, increasing the total recoveries to over 230 since Jan 13, when the first recoveries were discharged.

After accounting for new infections and recoveries, the province now has 777 COVID-19 patients in treatment and 80 asymptomatic carriers under medical observation, the commission said.

Among the COVID-19 patients, 12 are in acute condition and 28 have severe symptoms, it said.

The province has reported new cases for 24 consecutive days since this new outbreak of COVID-19 started at the beginning of the year.