China reports no new coronavirus cases in the epicentre of the pandemic

While the coronavirus pandemic feels like it’s never going to end, some news coming out of China shows there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

China has reported no fresh coronavirus cases in the epicentre of the outbreak, hopefully signalling that it could be passing over there.

Wuhan and surrounding Hubei province, where the outbreak began late last year, reported zero new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, March 18th.

China News Service

On Thursday, China’s health ministry said 34 new cases were seen in other parts of the country over the past 24 hours – with all of them being in people who had arrived from abroad.

However, while no new local cases were seen, eight people did die from the virus, all of them in Wuhan, which has a population of 11 million.

China News Service

Li, the director of China’s State Key Laboratory for Diagnosis and Treatment of Infectious Diseases, said: “If no new case of the coronavirus has been reported for 14 consecutive days in Wuhan following the last reported case, we believe it will be the time when the lockdown can be gradually lifted.

“We expect new cases will cease to appear in mid or late March. After the lockdown is loosened, we still need to strictly carry out routine measures to prevent and control the virus to prevent a possible rebound of the outbreak.”

Globally, coronavirus has infected over 215,000 and killed 8,700 people so far.