Xinhua/Cheng Min via Getty Images
Pilot of flight MU2527 of China Eastern airlines gestures before takeoff at the Tianhe International Airport in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, April 8, 2020.
- On Wednesday at midnight, Chinese authorities began allowing outbound travel from Wuhan, the city where the first coronavirus cases were reported last year.
- Throngs of people who can prove they are healthy are rushing out of the city by car, plane, and train.
- Travel from Wuhan was restricted for 76 days in an effort to keep the novel coronavirus outbreak contained.
- Wuhan, the initial epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, reported only three new cases in three weeks, according to official data.
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China has ended its 76-day lockdown of Wuhan - the Chinese city where the first cases of the novel coronavirus were reported in late 2019 - sending people flooding out of the city en masse.
Toward the end of January, China abruptly sealed off Wuhan to halt the coronavirus' spread to other regions of the country, implementing a lockdown order that has now become common in other parts of the world.
At midnight on Wednesday morning, Chinese officials began allowing people to travel out of Wuhan - the initial epicenter of the novel coronavirus pandemic - for the first time in nearly 11 weeks. As the travel ban was lifted, people who had been stranded in the city and could prove they are healthy began pouring out of Wuhan by plane, train, and car.
The loosening of restrictions comes after Wuhan reported only three new coronavirus cases in three weeks. On Tuesday, the day before the lockdown ended, China reported no new coronavirus-related deaths for the first time since January, according to government figures, which are disputed.
See what Wuhan looks like as people are allowed to move freely out of the city for the first time in months:
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