The New York Times reports:
For the first time since the coronavirus crisis began, China on Thursday reported no new local infections for the previous day, a milestone in its costly battle with the outbreak that has since spread around the world.
Officials said 34 new coronavirus cases had been confirmed, all of them involving people who had come to China from elsewhere.
In signaling that an end to China’s epidemic might be in sight, the announcement could pave the way for officials to focus on reviving the country’s economy, which nearly ground to a halt after the government imposed travel restrictions and quarantine measures. In recent days, economic life has been resuming in fits and starts.
But China is not out of danger. Experts have said that it will need to see at least 14 consecutive days without new infections for the outbreak to be considered over. It remains to be seen whether the virus will re-emerge once daily life restarts and travel restrictions are lifted.
Eumaeus has been saying since the beginning of March that China is the place to look to. The big questions of course are (1) whether the infection will return once restrictions are lifted. Recall that the SARS 2002 virus was completely extinguished; and (2) how long it will take to extinguish outside China. Looking at the chart, below, it takes about 3 weeks to completely flatten the curve, but we have no data on the restrictions that were imposed in those provinces, or are still being imposed.
Logically, if you take the extinction vs the mitigation approach you take no half measures, or the half measures get prolonged in an economically bad way.
Wait and see, and meanwhile Eumaeus stays indoors (or STFAH in social media parlance).