In a surprise, if not stunning move, Chinese authorities said Tuesday (March 24) they will end a two-month lockdown of most of coronavirus-hit Hubei Province at midnight, as domestic cases of the virus continue to subside.

People with a clean bill of health will be

allowed to leave, the provincial government said. The city of Wuhan, where the

outbreak started in late December, will remain locked down until April 8.

This from a country who only back on Thursday,

January 23, barred people from leaving or entering Wuhan in a surprise

middle-of-the-night announcement and expanded it to most of the province in

succeeding days. Train service and flights were cancelled and checkpoints set

up on roads into the central province.

The drastic steps came as the coronavirus

began spreading to the rest of China and overseas during the Lunar New Year

holiday, when many Chinese travel.

The virus raged for weeks in Wuhan, the

provincial capital, and surrounding cities. Hospitals overflowed, and temporary

ones were hastily set up to try to isolate the growing number of infected

patients.

The outbreak gradually was brought under

control, and Hubei has seen almost no new infections for more than a week.

The move to end the lockdown shows the authorities’

apparent faith in the success of the drastic measures in much of China. After

barring people from leaving or entering Wuhan, authorities swiftly expanded

what at the time were unprecedented measures to most of Hubei, with its tens of

millions of residents, as well as many other parts of the country of 1.4

billion people.

It remains unclear, however, whether other

cities and provinces, such as Beijing, the capital, will allow people leaving

Hubei to enter their jurisdictions, and quarantine rules are expected to remain

in place for those traveling outside their local areas.