China on Wednesday reported the highest number of daily COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic began nearly three years ago, official data showed. Excluding imported cases, the number of new local cases was 31,444 on Nov. 23, of which 3,927 were symptomatic and 27,517 were asymptomatic, health authorities said on Thursday. That number broke the previous record set on April 13, when local cases hit 29,317.