MOSCOW, March 12. /TASS/. /TASS/. The peak of the outbreak of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in China is over, China’s National Health Commission Spokesperson Mi Feng said during a briefing on Thursday.
"The peak of the novel coronavirus outbreak in our country is over, the number of new cases of the disease is becoming lower and lower," Xinhua news agency quotes Mi Feng as saying.
The official noted that no cases of COVID-19 had been detected in the Hubei province, except its capital city of Wuhan, in the past week. The number of new cases in Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, has dropped to a single digit, with only eight cases reported on Wednesday, he added.
In late December 2019, Chinese authorities notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about an outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, central China. On March 11, WHO officially characterized the situation with the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) as a pandemic. The disease has spread to over 100 countries. According to WHO, over 118,000 people have been infected with the virus globally, and 4,300 have died. The largest outbreaks of COVID-19 outside of China have been detected in South Korea, Iran and Italy. There have been 28 cases of the virus documented in Russia.