"Put this flower in a small bottle and it will bloom," Cai Weimin told a coronavirus patient as she handed her a magnolia.

The budding white magnolias in the central city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the new coronavirus outbreak, are heralding the arrival of spring and have grabbed the nurse's attention.

Cai, 43, works with the Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine affiliated with Capital Medical University and was one of the medical workers fighting against SARS in 2003.

She volunteered to join the medical team heading from the capital to Wuhan to combat the COVID-19 outbreak and has been working in the virus-ravaged city for a month.

Living in isolation wards can be boring, so to ease her patients' stay at hospital, Cai came up with the idea of picking flowers, disinfecting them and distributing them around.

Moved by Cai's gesture, one patient asked to visit the nurse in Beijing once the situation goes back to what it used to be. Cai said she would gladly host the patient over Peking Duck, the capital's specialty.

Cai has been encouraging patients not to give up hope.

Medical workers in Hubei Province, where Wuhan is located, have been coming up with all sorts of initiatives to ease stress on patients.

Chen Yuxi from Jiangxi medical team made a special board to help medical professionals better understand the needs of COVID-19 patients who are in critical condition. The checklist features hand-drawn images and Chinese characters listing basic feelings such as hunger, pain and cold.

Patients exhibiting severe pneumonia symptoms struggle to speak. "As long as the patient can open their eyes and understand, the board works," Chen said.

Children who have tested positive for the virus were afraid to see medical staff in hazmat suits.

In order to alleviate their fear, nurses at Maternity and Childcare Hospital in Hubei's Huangshi City, drew cartoons on their protective suits.

A young painter and recovered COVID-19 patient, Li Jing documented her hospital stay through illustrations focusing on medical workers' everyday chores. "They provided me with the utmost care and let me feel that getting infected is not as scary as I had expected," Li said.

As Hubei's new confirmed cases have dropped from a daily peak of over 2,000 to around 400, several landmarks were lit up with the words "Wuhan will emerge victorious."