BEIJING, April 29 (Sputnik) - China, where the virus was first registered last December, has seen a significant decline in the number of new coronavirus infections and has started to gradually return to its daily routine.

The Chinese parliament will convene for its annual meeting, which was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, starting on 22 May, Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday.

According to the authorities, the improvement of the coronavirus situation in China has allowed for the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) to convene again in late May.

Mainland China has reported a total of 22 new cases of COVID-19 within the past 24 hours, of which 21 were imported and one was local, the state health committee said. No new deaths have been reported.

Overall, 1,660 imported cases of coronavirus infection have now been detected in China, 553 people are still sick, 22 are in serious condition, 1,107 people have recovered, not a single person who entered China infected from abroad has died. Since the start of the outbreak, a total of 83,938 have been infected and at least 4,637 have died from coronavirus, according to the Johns Hipkins University count.

The virus was first identified in the Chinese city of Wuhan, Hubei province, but the epicentre of the disease later shifted to Europe, and then to the United States. On 11 March, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic.