People able to fly out of Wuhan for first time in 11 weeks

While much of Wuhan, the central Chinese city at the center of the global coronavirus pandemic, celebrates the end of the 11-week lockdown on the city of 11 million people, a few shed tears.

Medical workers are leaving their colleagues behind, since they are able to fly home after joining the frontline in combating the outbreak.

With song, dance and sobs, Wuhan medical doctors in white hazmat suits bade colleagues from Jilin farewell at Wuhan's recently reopened international airport.

Traveller Chen Yating, flying back to her home in Guangzhou, said the celebration was uplifting.

"We are living in a good era. When I entered the airport, I heard the music playing in the hall, 'without the Communist Party, there will be no new China'. I felt touched. It is not easy to achieve what we have today."

Wuhan's unprecedented lockdown was a model for countries trying to stop the coronavirus. With the restrictions ending, Hubei's provincial capital begins another experiment: resuming business and ordinary life while preventing more illnesses.

The city's 11 million residents are now permitted to leave without special authorisation as long as a mandatory smartphone application powered by a mix of data-tracking and government surveillance shows they are healthy and have not been in recent contact with anyone confirmed to have the virus.

Caught in Wuhan with his grandparents during the lockdown, the 10-year-old son of Deng Chang had quickly grown tired of online classes, including for his violin, and he was happy to finally be returning to Shanghai.

"While I was here, I had classes online. Staying in Wuhan with grandparents, it was not easy to have online classes. And here I cannot go out, but in Shanghai, I can go out after a 14-day-quarantine to meet my classmates."

His father Deng was "excited" to return to Shanghai after two and a half months with his parents – but also "grateful for all the help people provided to Wuhan."

Restrictions in the city where most of China's more than 82,000 virus cases and over 3,300 deaths from COVID-19 were reported have been gradually eased in recent weeks as the number of new cases steadily declined. The government reported no new cases there on Wednesday.

While there are questions about the veracity of China's count, the unprecedented lockdowns of Wuhan and Hubei have been successful enough that other countries adopted similar measures.

For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks.

But the virus is highly contagious and can be spread by those with mild or no visible symptoms.

For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, and could lead to death.