Hubei will lower its COVID-19 emergency response level from two to three as of Saturday, Yang Yunyan, deputy governor of the province announced at a press briefing on Friday.

The numbers refer to a four-tier response system, in which the third emergency response level is the second-lowest.

Prevention and control measures will be adjusted accordingly.

Parks, tourist sites and public indoor venues will allow more visitors under updated restrictions.

Events such as conferences, exhibitions, sports matches and entertainment shows can also be held under strict prevention and control measures.

KTV, swimming pools and sports venues will be opened in an orderly manner. Schools will also resume classes with all teachers and students required to take nucleic acid tests.

Hubei Province lowered its emergency response to COVID-19 from the top level to level two on May 2.

Why lower the level?

Yang gave three reasons enabling the province to lower the emergency response level.

First, the epidemic situation has been stable and improving.

Since the last confirmed case reported on May 18, there have been no new confirmed cases for 24 consecutive days, and the province has seen "seven no-cases" – new confirmed, new suspected, new asymptomatic, new deaths, existing confirmed, existing suspected, and imported.

In the sweeping nucleic acid test in the hard-hit Wuhan City, no confirmed cases were found; not a single asymptomatic case turned into a confirmed case; no close contact was tested positive; no virulent virus was isolated from the samples of the 300 asymptomatic coronavirus carriers screened out in the test; and no positive test result was found in the samples collected from the personal belongings of the asymptomatic carriers.

All cities in Wuhan have been downgraded to low epidemic risk since June 2.

Moreover, the detection rate of asymptomatic carriers in the province has shown a significant downward trend, and the risk of imported cases from overseas is low, Yang added.

(CGTN's Gao Yun, Bu Shi also contributed to this story.)

(Cover image: Hubei provincial government holds a press conference, June 12, 2020. /CGTN)