China on Tuesday decided to lift the three-month lockdown on more than 56 million people in the central Hubei province, the epicentre of the deadly coronavirus outbreak, on Wednesday amid warnings by experts of a looming second wave of the COVID-19 infections in the country due to the steady rise in "imported cases". The prolonged lockdown of Hubei's capital Wuhan will end on April 8, lifting the mass quarantine over the city with a population of over 11 million.
Wuhan, the central Chinese city where the virus cases were first detected in December last year on Monday reported one new confirmed case of the COVID-19 after reporting zero cases for five consecutive days.
Hubei province and Wuhan city which together have over 56 million population were kept under strict lockdown since January 23 with a ban on all movement of people and transportation.
China is embarking on a major step to open up its coronavirus epicentres just as India and the world is seriously grappling with the fast-paced spread of the disease which has become a global pandemic forcing most of the countries to go into a lockdown mode.
People in Wuhan will be allowed to leave the city and Hubei Province, if they hold a green health code, meaning no contact with any infected or suspected COVID-19 cases, according to a circular issued by the provincial COVID-19 control headquarters, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
Wuhan will take differentiated measures to promote the resumption of business operations based on the health risks of different regions to mitigate the impact on the economy, the circular said.
Other areas in Hubei will lift outbound transportation restrictions from Wednesday. Migrant workers who hold green cards and get negative nucleic acid testing results will be sent out of the province to their workplace directly.
On January 23, Wuhan declared unprecedented traffic restrictions, including suspending the city's public transport and all outbound flights and trains, in an attempt to contain the epidemic within its territory. Similar restrictions were soon introduced in other areas in Hubei.
