China’s Xi says Wuhan has ‘turned the tide’ against virus epidemic

WUHAN, China: Chinese President Xi Jinping said Tuesday that Wuhan has turned the tide against the deadly coronavirus outbreak, as he paid his first visit to the city at the heart of the global epidemic. Xi’s visit came as unprecedented quarantine measures that have sealed off Wuhan and the rest of central Hubei province since late January appear to have paid off, with new infections dropping dramatically in recent weeks. During Xi’s trip, Hubei announced it would ease travel restrictions to allow healthy people in low-risk areas to travel throughout the province. But the measure did not appear to loosen restrictions on Wuhan nor indicate if people could leave the province of 56 million people. State media also reported that the last of Wuhan’s 16 makeshift hospitals that were converted from public buildings during the worst of the outbreak had closed. “The spread of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has been basically curbed in Hubei province and its capital city Wuhan,” Xi said, according to the official Xinhua news agency. “Initial success has been made in stabilising the situation and turning the tide in Hubei and Wuhan,” he said. China’s progress against the outbreak stands in stark contrast with the growing global crisis, with cases now growing at a faster pace abroad, and Italy enacting its own nationwide travel restrictions. State media images showed Xi, who arrived by plane in Hubei’s capital, wearing a face mask as he spoke via video-link from a conference hall to frontline medical workers and patients who are at one of two field hospitals set up in the city. He then went to a residential community in Wuhan to speak with people quarantined, and community workers.