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Chance -or not- has wanted the day that China has not registered any new case of coronavirus to coincide with the opening of the most important political conclave of the year. Yesterday, the National Popular Assembly (ANP) sent a clear message, not with words, but through images, by bringing together the country's ruling class under the roof of the Great Hall of the People. China had left the pandemic behind.

Today the National Health Commission has taken the witness with data that indicates that on Friday there was not a single infected among a population of 1.4 billion people. The first time this has happened since it all started in Wuhan. Although, they clarify in their statement, they did detect "two suspected cases" in Shanghai and in Jilin province .

Gone is that December 31 when the first news came out that Wuhan officials were investigating the cause of a pneumonia outbreak. Chinese media such as The Paper were talking about 27 infected people, and the Wuhan Municipal Health Committee had released a note reporting that several hospitals had treated "patients with unexplained pneumonia."

On January 7, Shi Zhengli, a virologist at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, had determined that it was a new coronavirus that had caused the disease in infected patients. And 13 days later, Shi released the SARS-CoV-2 virus genome. What came next was the largest health quarantine ever seen before , closing the entire Hubei province and confining almost 60 million people to their homes. But the focus would soon be off the Asian giant. The coronavirus had begun to spread throughout the world.

Taking the official figures from China, the confirmed infections total 82,971 . Although currently there are only 79 active cases. Deaths, compared to other countries hit by the pandemic, are also very low: 4,634. Since May 11, the daily count of new positives had dropped from about ten. But the news that, for the first time since the pandemic began, no new contagion has been registered, has triggered the spirit of an early return to full normality. Without mask. No temperature controls at every corner. Without restrictions of movements and the opening again of the borders.

It won't be fast. And there is concern about the small outbreak coming from the northeast, from Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces. Especially after the latest information from the doctors on the ground. The coronavirus from these regions near Russia would be manifesting differently compared to the original Wuhan outbreak. The new infected seem to carry the virus for a longer period of time and take longer to test negative.

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