The Chinese city that became the epicenter of the global coronavirus pandemic has reported no new cases of the disease, the Associated Press has reported - offering hope to the rest of the world.
Late last year, Wuhan became the focus of the world when the source of the coronavirus reportedly originated from a "wet market" in the Hubei province capital, where both dead and live animals were sold.
According to a tally comprised by Johns Hopkins University in the US, there are 218,825 cases and 8,810 deaths globally (as of this writing).
But in a sign of hope, a report by China's health ministry states that Wuhan and the surrounding Hubei province recorded no new cases of COVID-19 yesterday. Per the report:
"On March 18, Hubei reported no new cases of confirmed infections, no new cases of suspected infections, and 8 deaths (6 in Wuhan). 795 patients were released from hospital after being cured, including 733 in Wuhan."
The report also stated that there have been just 34 new cases of COVID-19 across all of China - all of whom came from abroad.
This was the moment a Wuhan medic was so overcome with the stress of the outbreak that she broke down:As of yesterday's report, China's National Health Commission confirmed a total number of 80,928 reports of confirmed coronavirus cases and 3,245 deaths across the 31 provincial-level regions on the Chinese mainland and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps.
Writing on Twitter, the China correspondent for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Bill Birtles, wrote:
"The day has come. For the first time since the outbreak began, authorities record NO new cases in #Wuhan or Hubei, and just 1 domestic transmission. The overall numbers for mainland China are rising though to 34 in total - mainly in #Beijing - all overseas arrivals."
At the height of the COVID-19 crisis, China put its residents on lockdown.
Ben Cowling - Hong Kong University's School of Public Health's head of the division of epidemiology and biostatistics - told the New York Times: "It's very clear that the actions taken in China have almost brought to an end their first wave of infections.
"The question is what will happen if there's a second wave because the kind of measures that China has implemented are not necessarily sustainable in the long term."
But the recent report is now sparking questions of when people will no longer be instructed to stay indoors.
Speaking to China Daily, epidemiologist Li Lanjuan - the director of China's State Key Laboratory for Diagnosis and Treatment of Infectious Diseases - talking about when lockdowns will start to be lifted. Li 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."