China announced easing of Wuhan's quarantine, then retracted it

Beijing: China said that an announcement that the quarantine of Wuhan would be eased was prematurely issued without approval from top officials. The lockdown of the Chinese city where the novel coronavirus emerged would remain fully in place, it said. The abrupt about-turn within a matter of hours added to the confusion emanating from the devastated city of 11million which has been sealed off since Jan. 23.

Hubei province - where Wuhan is located has also adjusted its official count of infected people multiple times in recent weeks, fuelling mistrust of the official narrative emerging from the epicenter of an outbreak.

On Monday, a city government statement on Weibo said that nonresidents would now be able to travel out of Wuhan as long as they are healthy and not quarantined. It was the first move to ease a lockdown over the 60 million Hubei population that’s been in place for a month, and seen as a sign that China believed that the outbreak is until control. But hours later, the statement was deleted off Weibo as well as state media sites without explanation. Shortly after, a new statement was issued on the city government’s Weibo account saying that the earlier announcement was “unauthorised” and that there would be no change to the quarantine.