China has stemmed the coronavirus with aggressive measures, including locking down Wuhan and nearby cities in Hubei province, building two dedicated hospitals in Wuhan in just over one week, sending healthcare workers from all over China to the outbreak's center and launching an unprecedented effort to trace contacts of confirmed cases.
Their efforts were noted in a report released Feb. 28 from a mission organized by the World Health Organization and the Chinese government and other countries are taking a look at Beijing's strategies, reports The Wall Street Journal.
Globally, more than 100,000 people have been infected by the virus and more than 4,000 people have died in an epidemic that began in Wuhan, China. But the number of new cases reported in Beijing has fallen dramatically in recent days as infections surge in other countries – officials reported only 99 new cases Saturday, down from around 2,000 a day just weeks ago.
WHO has praised China's response, saying the bold approach "has changed the course of a rapidly escalating and deadly epidemic."
"A particularly compelling statistic is that on the first day of the advance team's work there were 2478 newly confirmed cases of COVID-19 reported in China," the report read. "Two weeks later, on the final day of this Mission, China reported 409 newly confirmed cases. This decline in COVID-19 cases across China is real."
Other countries have implemented similar measures, including Italy and South Korea. All of Italy is under quarantine and South Korea has restricted travel inside the country and increased surveillance on citizens.