Local health authorities in China said on Mar. 24, 2020 that the two-month lockdown on Hubei province, the epicenter of the country's Covid-19 outbreak, will be soon lifted.

Healthy residents will be able to leave the province from midnight, Mar. 25 (Wed).

Wuhan lockdown to be lifted in two weeks' time

The city of Wuhan's lockdown will be lifted on April 8, two weeks after the rest of Hubei province.

The decision was made after a drastic decrease in the number of new cases in the province, which previously had thousands of cases reported daily in February.

On Jan. 23, 11 million residents in Wuhan were put on lockdown in order to stem the spread of the virus, which killed over 3,000 in China.

Situation improving in China, but spread is accelerating worldwide

China's President Xi Jinping has been projecting confidence that his government has stemmed the outbreak in the country.

On March 10, he visited Wuhan for the first time since the disease emerged.

More than 2 months have passed since Wuhan, a city of 11m people, was completely locked down as part of China's decisive & aggressive measures in fighting #COVID19. Lifting the lockdown on Apr 8 could be a significant visible indication that we are scoring the victory: observers pic.twitter.com/lffHdQY06s — Global Times (@globaltimesnews) March 24, 2020

While the Covid-19 situation has dramatically improved in China, the surge in cases outside of China has not slowed down, with over 40,000 cases in the United States and 63,000 cases in Italy.

Governments across the world have started closing their borders and ordering temporary lockdowns to curb the spread of the disease, which has killed over 16,000 people worldwide.

Chinese experts have warned that the rise in imported cases in mainland China could cause a second wave of infections in the country.

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Top image via Global Times/Twitter