The Hubei province in China is currently studying plans to let people in different areas at medium- or low-risk of acquiring the killer illness, coronavirus (COVID-19) to start traveling. This was reported by the state media on Tuesday, indicating that a meeting which Ying Yong, the province's party chief headed.
The meeting, as the official Hubei Daily reported, said that people may now be allowed to start traveling through the use of a "health code," a monitoring system that's mobile-based and has been rolled out by several authorizes in China in the past weeks.
Hubei province, as well as its capital, Wuhan, are at the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak in China. A couple of days ago, no cases of the virus had been reported by the central province of Hubei in China, excluding Wuhan for 24 for the first time all throughout the epidemic, as authorities unceasingly contained imported infections in other areas of the country.
Wuhan earlier reported 126 new confirmed coronavirus cases although no new infections were listed in this province other than those in the previous reports, according to the National Health Commission.
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No New COVID-19 Cases Reported for Up to 29 Days
In other areas of the country, schools in provinces that also reported no new COVID-19 cases for a couple of days now started announcing their school opening date, a sign that China is returning to normal.
China's northwestern province, Qinghai that reported zero new cases for 29 days, said it would launch the start date of varying school days between March 11 and March 20, a notice posted on the official website said. In a separate report, no new cases had also been listed Guizhou's southwestern province for 18 days, and schools would open on March 16.
Outside of Hubei, 16 new confirmed infections were listed, bringing the total number of new cases in Mainland China to 143 late last week, and up to 139 infections, on earlier.
Out of 17 new COVID-19 cases, according to reports, "16 were imported from outside of China," 11 cases in Gansu, four infections in Beijing, and another one in Shanghai.
In a report on state television late Thursday, a total number of 311 passengers arriving in the provincial capital of Gansu from Iran went straight to quarantine.
Gansu as the First to Lower Emergency Response Measures
In February, Gansu was identified as the first province in China, to reduce its emergency response measures, lowering from level I to III, a reflection of lacking new cases.
Meanwhile, the four cases in Beijing came from Italy. As new infections decline in China, attention has diverted to possible infections coming from abroad.
The Beijing, Guangdong and Shanghai authorities have all sworn to quarantine all travelers who come from the countries that COVID-19 hit the hardest.
Beijing identified these countries like Italy, Iran, Japan, and South Korea.
The accumulated number of confirmed infections on Thursday was 80,552 in all, in mainland China. On the other hand, the death toll in China from the epidemic stood at 3,042 late Thursday, "up by 30" a day before.
And lastly, 29 new deaths were reported in Hubei, while 23 infected people died in Wuhan.
