Xi Jinping says Wuhan has "turned the tide" against the virus epidemic

WUHAN: Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Tuesday that Wuhan had turned the tide on the deadly coronavirus epidemic when he made his first visit to the city at the heart of the global epidemic.

Xi's visit came amid unprecedented quarantine measures that have surrounded Wuhan and the rest of central Hubei province since late January appear to have paid off, as new infections have dropped dramatically in recent weeks.

During Xi's trip, Hubei announced that he would ease travel restrictions to allow healthy people in low-risk areas to travel across the province.

But the measure did not seem to ease restrictions on Wuhan or indicate whether people could leave the province of 56 million people.

State media also reported that the last of 16 makeshift hospitals in Wuhan, which had been converted into public buildings during the worst epidemic, had closed.

"The spread of the new coronavirus disease (Covid-19) has been largely curbed in Hubei Province and its capital Wuhan," said Xi, according to the official news agency Xinhua.

"Initial success has been achieved in stabilizing the situation and reversing the trend in Hubei and Wuhan," he said.

China's progress against the outbreak is in stark contrast to the growing global crisis, with cases now increasing at a faster rate abroad, and Italy adopting its own travel restrictions abroad. Nationwide.

State media images show Xi, arriving by plane in the capital of Hubei, wearing a face mask while speaking via video link from a conference room to front-line medical workers and patients who are found in one of the two field hospitals located in the city.

He then went to a residential community in Wuhan to speak with quarantined people and community workers.

China's most powerful leader since Mao Zedong was generally a daily newspaper in the state media, but remained out of the spotlight for much of the crisis and charged the Prime Minister Li Keqiang to oversee the response to the epidemic.

But as the number of new cases has dropped in recent weeks, state media has played Xi's role in the fight against the epidemic, issuing a speech last month in which he said that he had been giving instructions since early January.

Hua Po, a Beijing-based independent political analyst, told AFP that the travel schedule indicated an "interim victory" for China.

"His visit is intended to signal that the epidemic has been effectively contained and is an attempt to appease external critics of not going to the front line," said Hao.

Authorities have faced rare and fierce online criticism of their handling of the virus, with local authorities under special scrutiny for punishing whistleblowers in an apparent attempt to cover up the suspect. epidemic in early January.

"During the worst of the epidemic, Xi avoided the epicenter because he didn't want to be blamed, but when the situation improves, he shows up to receive praise", said Bruce Lui, a lecturer in journalism in Hong Kong. Baptist University.

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The death of Doctor Li Wenliang, who died of Covid-19 disease in February, triggered a wave of grief and anger on the Internet. He was part of a group of people who had sounded the alarm as early as December.

Deputy Prime Minister Sun Chunlan's visit to a residential community in Wuhan last week met with angry public heckling when people complained that he was shown a "fake" food delivery showing how bad State propaganda efforts could easily backfire.

The virus is said to have appeared in December on a market that sold wild animals to Wuhan before flying off to become a national and then global epidemic.

More than 4,000 people have died and more than 110,000 have been infected worldwide, the majority in China.

But China only reported 17 new cases in Wuhan on Tuesday, the lowest figure since it started publishing data on January 21, and two elsewhere imported from abroad.

"Xi does not want to be associated with the disaster, but with the recovery," said Adam Ni, a researcher at the China Policy Center in Canberra.

"China has now taken the plunge with Covid-19, and the party now wants to develop the most positive story despite the first missteps."