After two months of lockdown, tens of millions of Chinese residents of Hubei province in China—except Wuhan City—were finally allowed to go out of their homes and travel within or outside their province after experiencing the first blow of the dreaded COVID-19 pandemic.
Governments around the world which locked down more than 3 billion people are hoping this stringent measure of confining most of their population at home will also get to see themselves in the same situation as Hubei.
China claims to have largely brought the coronavirus outbreak under control, reporting only imported cases of the virus from Chinese residents coming from overseas.
Starting midnight today, Hubei residents who are healthy are allowed to travel.
“Outbound traffic will be restored in an orderly manner,” the Hubei provincial government said. The lifting of travel restrictions allows people to travel to other places within and outside Hubei province.
The 11 million Wuhan residents need to stay longer until April 8, after which outbound traffic will be allowed and the wet market where the virus is believed to have originated will be opened, too.
All residents will need to have a “Green Code” in order to travel. This is the health classification system using the AliPay app.
Last Monday, small groups of Wuhan residents were allowed to leave their residential compounds, going to shops and walking along the streets.
Around 1,000 workers from elsewhere in Hubei returned to work in Wuhan City, too, and arrived via train.
