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BEIJING, March 12-- China on Thursday said the peak of the current outbreak of novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the country is over, hours after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the epidemic a pandemic. And a renowned Chinese respiratory specialist said it could be brought under control by June, if most countries act like China. In China, new cases have kept declining and the overall epidemic situation remains at a low level, said Mi Feng, a spokesperson for the National Health Commission, at a press conference in Beijing. Mi said the number of new confirmed cases in Wuhan, the epicenter in central China's Hubei Province, has dropped to a single digit, with only eight cases reported on Wednesday. Only seven new cases were reported on the Chinese mainland outside Hubei, but six were imported from overseas. Wuhan confirmed the appearance of a new virus in December, which was later named COVID-19. This highly contagious virus quickly spread, with daily cases peaking at over 15,000 on Feb. 12. China has mobilized the whole country's resources to contain it. Cities were locked down, experts and supplies sent to the epicenter, and hundreds of millions of people across the country stayed at home for weeks to enforce social distancing. By this week, normality has been steadily returning to China with many provinces and regions lowering their emergency responses, many businesses resuming operation and 87 percent of the country's entry and exit authorities having resumed service by Thursday. | 
