Surgeons conduct a surgery in an operating room at Tongji Hospital affiliated with the Tongji Medical College of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, in Wuhan, Central China's Hubei province. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Wuhan has been the hardest-hit city by the COVID-19 outbreak in China. The outbreak has made health authorities in China realize the importance of improving the warning system, virus-diagnosis capacity and coordination in epidemic prevention and control, the release said.

During the outbreak, Tongji Hospital served as a designated hospital for COVID-19 treatment, particularly for severely ill and critical patients.

Two of the hospital's three branches in Wuhan were turned into designated medical facilities to treat COVID-19 patients in severe condition. Working with 40 medical teams that came to Wuhan to assist, the hospital took the largest number of fever patients in the city. It was also the first in China to launch a fever clinic online to deal with the surging number of patients at the early stage of the outbreak when medical resources were overstretched, according to the hospital.