A worker in protective suit collects a swab from a teacher for nucleic acid test in Fancheng District of Xiangyang City, central China's Hubei Province, April 18, 2020. (Photo by Xie Jianfei/Xinhua)

Hubei, China's hardest-hit province by the COVID-19 pandemic, will lower its emergency response to the novel coronavirus epidemic from the second to the third level starting Saturday, a local official announced on Friday.

The third emergency response level is the second-lowest.