After months of Coronavirus lockdown, China’s Hubei province is set to allow the resumption of all transportation from Wuhan on April 8 – the seat and centre of the deadly virus that has claimed thousands of lives worldwide.

The coronavirus first emerged in the city last December.

According to a statement posted on the provincial government’s website on Tuesday, people in Wuhan will be allowed to leave the city and Hubei province. The pandemic has infected more than 80,000 Chinese people and claimed the lives of over 3200 people but recently, Hubei reported no new domestic infections on March 19.

This is, of course, a huge deal for President Xi Jinping who has been reporting that his government has managed to stem the tide of COVID-19. For the first time since the disease emerged, Jinping visited Wuhan, the capital of Hubei and even as the virus loses steam in China and gains momentum in Europe, the world’s second-largest economy will struggle to return to full power.