Wuhan << woo hahn >> (pop. 8,710,000) is the capital of Hubei Province in China. Wuhan is the collective name for the adjacent cities of Hankou, Hanyang, and Wuchang. The cities are considered a single political and economic unit. Wuchang lies on the south bank of the Yangtze River. Hankou and Hanyang are on the north bank. The Han River separates Hankou and Hanyang. The Han River bridge and ferries provide transportation between these two cities. The Yangtze bridge links Wuchang with Hanyang, and the Wuhan Metro rapid transit system links most Wuhan neighborhoods. Wuhan, an industrial center, was the birthplace of the Chinese Revolution in 1911.
In late 2019, Wuhan became the center of an outbreak of a previously unknown respiratory disease caused by a type of virus called a coronavirus. Doctors became aware of the disease when unusually large numbers of people began to enter area hospitals with symptoms of pneumonia. In January 2020, the Chinese government tried to stop the spread of the contagious disease by restricting travel into and out of Wuhan and several nearby cities. Within those areas, government officials limited public activity and set up emergency medical facilities. Nevertheless, within weeks, the disease had spread to other parts of China, infecting tens of thousands of people. It soon spread throughout the world. In February, the World Health Organization (WHO) named the disease COVID-19, for COrona VIrus Disease 2019. In March, WHO declared the outbreak to be a pandemic. By early April, few new cases of COVID-19 were being reported daily in Wuhan. The government eased its strict quarantine rules inside Wuhan, and began to allow movement out of the area by people who had been cleared as healthy. However, some restrictions remained.
