Beijing”•The city of Wuhan, the initial epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, no longer has any COVID-19 patients in hospital after the last 12 were discharged on Sunday, the South China Morning Post reported.
Their release ended a four-month nightmare for the city, where the disease was first detected in December. The number of patients being treated for COVID-19, the disease caused by a new coronavirus, peaked on Feb. 18 at 38,020—nearly 10,000 of whom were in severe or critical condition.
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This developed as coronavirus restrictions eased elsewhere and governments around the world began charting a path out of the pandemic lockdown.
Italy and New York laid out partial reopening plans, with France and Spain to follow suit this week, while tens of thousands of students returned to school in Shanghai and Beijing after months of closures.
But leaders and experts remain on how quickly to revive shuttered economies while maintaining a delicate balance between freedom and safety.
“With the joint efforts of Wuhan and the national medical aid given to Hubei province, all cases of COVID-19 in Wuhan were cleared as of April 26,” Mi Feng, a spokesman for the National Health Commission, said on Sunday afternoon.
The announcement came only one day after the city discharged the last patient who had been in a severe condition. That patient also was the last severe case in Hubei province.
Wuhan was the hardest-hit city in China, accounting for 50,333 of the 82,827 locally transmitted COVID-19 cases recorded in China. More than 4,600 died in the country from the disease.
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Meanwhile, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Monday claimed the country had scored a significant victory against the spread of the coronavirus, as it began a phased exit from lockdown.
"There is no widespread, undetected community transmission in New Zealand," Ardern declared. "We have won that battle."
After nearly five weeks at the maximum Level Four restrictions—with only essential services operating—New Zealand will move to Level Three late on Monday. That will allow some businesses, takeaway food outlets and schools to reopen.
But Ardern warned there was no certainty about when all transmission can be eliminated, allowing a return to normal life.
In the United States, New York, which has ground to a halt to stop the coronavirus pandemic, may start reopening manufacturing and construction after May 15, Governor Andrew Cuomo said Sunday.
Cuomo, however, said that any easing of measures would take place first in the north of the state and not in the New York City metropolitan region, by far the hardest-hit area in the US.
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"The regions that would be more likely able to open sooner would be the upstate regions," Cuomo told reporters. "Downstate New York is going to be more complicated."
He said that any potential reopening of New York City, the country's most populous city, could need to be coordinated with authorities in the adjacent states of New Jersey and Connecticut.
A lockdown of New York ordered by Cuomo is set to expire on May 15. Under a plan for reopening, the first sectors would be construction and manufacturing.
Ardern said everyone wants to "bring back the social contact that we all miss, but to do it confidently we need to move slowly and we need to move cautiously."
"I will not risk the gains we've made in the health of New Zealanders. So if we need to remain at Level Three, we will," she added.
The easing of restrictions came as New Zealand, a nation of five million people, reported only one new case of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, taking the total to 1,122 with 19 deaths.
The last patient discharged from Wuhan Chest Hospital, a 77-year-old man surnamed Ding, twice tested negative for Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and was released at noon on Sunday.
“I missed my family so much!” Ding told Changjing Daily.
Another unidentified patient exclaimed as he left the hospital: “The air outside is so fresh! The weather is so good today!”
Wuhan faced a long journey to bring its patient count down to zero.
The city of 11 million, the capital of Hubei province and a transport hub for central China, was put under a strict lockdown on Jan. 23 that barred anyone from entering or exiting the city without official approval for 76 days until it was officially lifted on April 8.
Residents were ordered to stay in their apartments as the city stopped public transport and banned private cars from city streets. As the epidemic worsened, more than 42,000 medical staff from across the country were sent to the city and to Hubei province to help ease the burden on the local health care system.
On March 13, the city reported for the first time that there were no new suspected cases of the infection, and five days later there were no confirmed cases.
The number of discharged patients bottomed out at 39.1 percent at the end of February, gradually climbing to 92.2 percent by last Thursday.
“Having the patients in the hospital cleared on April 26 marks a major achievement for the city’s COVID-19 treatment,” the Wuhan Health Commission said in a statement.
However, having no severe cases in hospital does not mean all the discharged patients will require no further treatment as they may still need further care.
“Clearing all the severe cases marks a decisive victory for the battle to safeguard Wuhan,” health minister Ma Xiaowei told state broadcaster China Central Television on Saturday.
“Some patients who have other conditions are being treated in specialized hospitals. It has been properly arranged.”
Ten patients aged between 42 and 85 who have been declared coronavirus-free are still in intensive care at the city’s Tongji Hospital where they are being treated for kidney problems and other complications arising from COVID-19. Some still need ventilators to help them breathe.
These 10 patients are under 24-hour care, with 190 nurses on four-hour rotations. There are other patients in a similar condition in two other hospitals in Wuhan, according to the Hubei Broadcasting and Television Network.
However, the discharge of the last batch of COVID-19 patients does not mean that the risk of infection is gone.
The city reported 20 new cases of people testing positive for Sars-CoV-2, the official name for the coronavirus that causes the disease, but who do not yet show symptoms.
There are 535 such carriers under medical observation. Past data shows some of these asymptomatic carriers will develop symptoms, and so will be counted as COVID-19 patients under China’s diagnosis and treatment plan.
Cuomo said the state was operating with a caveat — "don't do anything that's going to bring people in from all across the board."
Cuomo has called for a two-week delay before the next stage of reopening, which would include most offices, to ensure that the first phase does not trigger a resurgence of the virus.
The governor stressed that any final decision would be conditioned on a downturn in COVID-19 hospitalizations between now and May 15.
The state on Sunday reported 367 fatalities in the previous 24 hours, the lowest number since March 30 when 332 people died. COVID-19 has now killed 16,966 people in New York state, accounting for around a third of the deaths in the United States.
To reopen, businesses will need to present New York authorities with plans that show they are ensuring sanitation to reduce the risk of virus transmission.
Cuomo said that no full-scale return to normal could come until the reopening of schools, which would allow parents to work outside of home.
New York state has not made a decision on reopening the education system, although Mayor Bill de Blasio has said that he considers the rest of the school year canceled in the city.
Cuomo said that some school districts were studying whether to hold summer sessions to make up for lost time.
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