Photo taken with a mobile phone shows a cured patient waving goodbye to medical workers before leaving the Leishenshan hospital in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, Feb. 27, 2020. On Thursday, 32 coronavirus-infected patients recovered and were discharged from the hospital.Photo:Xinhua

Wuhan, the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak, is coming out of its darkest moment, China's Center for Disease and Control chief epidemiologist Zeng Guang said Saturday at a forum, adding that other Chinese cities are also making visible progress in combating against the disease.  

During a live-streamed forum on Saturday, Zeng noted the situation in China has been rather good, as the epidemic prevention work had been categorized into three parts nationwide: Wuhan, other cities in Hubei, and other regions in the country. Now, it can only be divided into Wuhan and other places, outside Wuhan.

Cities in Hubei are catching up with other regions in the countries in curbing the virus spread, and Wuhan is "coming out of the darkest moment," he said. 

The National Health Commission (NHC) said Saturday the reported new cases in Wuhan have declined to double-digits as of Friday, and new cases nationwide have dropped below 100. Besides, nine provinces and Northwest China's Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps reported zero new cases for consecutive 14 days.  

A total of 99 new coronavirus infections with 28 new deaths were reported Friday in the Chinese mainland, the NHC said Saturday. The total infection number reached 80,651, with 3,070 deaths.

Meanwhile, Hubei Province reported 74 new cases of novel coronavirus pneumonia, with 28 new deaths and 1,502 cases of recovery.

Some countries may have just begun experiencing their darkest moments, and it may take a long time for them to get through, Zeng said.

More than 100,000 cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed globally as of Saturday, according to the World Health Organization. Countries like Italy, France, and Germany saw  rapid growth in confirmed cases while infection numbers also surged in the US in recent days. 

Though the US has been in a predominant position in the public health domain, with highly qualified experts and abundant experience, "it is still unknown whether the US has found a right path [to handling the epidemic]," the chief epidemiologist said. What Chinese people have done might not be possible in the US, Zeng noted adding that considering the insufficient stocks of masks, the US government has recommended the public not to wear masks.

"The US has 45 million masks in stock, how long will these stocks be used by its 300 million people? Many mask manufacturers have their production lines outside the US, if they ask people to wear masks, there will be panic buying," Zeng said. 

Public panic should be curbed before the epidemic spread is curbed, and it seemed that the US government wanted to do more by spending less, which is the US way of containing the outbreak as it was in the case it handles flu, he noted. 

It is yet to get a full picture of the epidemic situation in the US.  James Lawler, a professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, predicted there could be as many as 96 million cases in the US, 4.8 million hospitalizations, and 480,000 deaths associated with the coronavirus, according to media reports. 

Zeng told the Global Times in an earlier interview the reported numbers by US CDC so far could only be the "tip of the iceberg," and in terms of how big is this iceberg, "it's hard to say."