China reported no new novel coronavirus deaths or locally transmitted cases yesterday, according to the country's National Health Commission.

There were 32 new cases — all of them imported from abroad.

This is the first time China has reported no new coronavirus deaths since the NHC began releasing daily updates in late January.

China has now recorded a total of 81,740 cases and 3,331 deaths, according to the NHC.

This doesn’t represent the total number of active cases, but rather the number of infections since the pandemic began. Of those total cases, 77,167 patients have recovered and been discharged from hospitals, according to the NHC.

Much of China is returning to normal life. Hubei province — ground zero for the pandemic — and many other parts of the country have been under lockdown and movement restrictions for three months, but curbs designed to stop the spread of the virus are beginning to loosen as the perceived level of threat subsides.

Tomorrow, the lockdown on Wuhan, the city at the epicentre of the outbreak, will be lifted — a significant milestone in its battle against the deadly virus.

Starting tomorrow, people will be allowed to leave Wuhan and Hubei if they have a green QR code on their mobile phones, which the provincial government has distributed as an indicator of people’s health status.