(Yicai Global) Jan. 29 -- Zhejiang province expects the number of new cases of people infected with the novel coronavirus to start to drop in the next seven to 10 days, The Paper reported today, citing an official from the provincial health commission.

At the moment, the virus is still going strong. Zhejiang confirmed 123 new cases yesterday, bringing the total to 296, according to the Health Commission of Zhejiang Province. Of these patients, 42 are in a critical state while three have fully recovered and have been discharged from hospital.

There are an increased number of institutions in the eastern province that can conduct tests for the new coronavirus, said Deputy Director Sun Liming. This greatly speeds up the accuracy of diagnosis and improves detection efficiency. So far 18 hospitals, 62 disease control centers and a few third-party laboratories can perform the tests.

In addition, Zhejiang has strengthened its inspections of transportation hubs and traffic checkpoints, Sun added. Through the use of Big Data, it has expanded the scope of its searches to identify those who have been in close contact with the coronavirus.

In little over a month, there have been almost 6,000 confirmed cases of the deadly pneumonia across 31 provincial-level regions in China and 132 deaths.

Editor: Kim Taylor