China's health authorities say more than 6,300 COVID-19 patients died in medical institutions across the country during the seven-day period through Thursday.

The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention announced on Saturday that nationwide 6,364 patients with COVID-19 died from January 20 through Thursday.

The center says 289 of those people died of respiratory failure. It says 6,075 other patients died from complications caused by pre-existing diseases.

The country's weekly COVID-related death toll dropped by fifty percent from the previous week, when more than 12,000 fatalities were reported.

The virus has been spreading across China since the authorities drastically eased the country's anti-virus measures on December 7.

The death toll from December 8 through Thursday was 78,960. But some analysts say the real figure is actually much higher, as the official number does not include deaths that occurred outside medical institutions.

There are also fears in the country that the virus may have spread in the rural regions during the seven-day Lunar New Year holiday period that ended on Friday. There was a sharp increase during that period in the number of tourists, who visited China. There was also a jump in the number of people who traveled in the rural areas.

The possible emergence of new variants is also feared.