The original epicentre of the global coronavirus outbreak has marked a welcome milestone.
Wuhan, where the outbreak originated from in the New Year, has marked its first day without any new cases.
Chinese authorities said there were no new cases across the city and the surrounding Hubei Province.
In fact there were no new homegrown cases of coronavirus across China.
The 34 cases reported on Wednesday were all imported from overseas.
"Today we have seen the dawn after so many days of hard effort," said Jiao Yahui, a senior inspector at the National Health Commission.
Unfortunately, the prognosis remains grave elsewhere around the world.
This week Italy recorded the most covid-19 deaths in a single day – 475, which was more than at the height of the outbreak in Wuhan.
Wuhan and other cities in Hubei had been under a strict lockdown since January.
Some travel restrictions had been eased in recent days and everyday business operations and factory output has been slowly returning to normal.
However the region still remains essentially cut off from the rest of the country and special permission is needed to travel in and out.
