Chinese authorities announced Tuesday they would end a two-month lockdown of most of virus-hit Hubei province at midnight.
The city of Wuhan, where the outbreak started in late December, will remain locked down until April 8.
China barred people from leaving or entering Wuhan starting January 23 in a surprise middle-of-the-night announcement and expanded it to most of the province in succeeding days. Train service and flights were cancelled and checkpoints set up on roads into the central province.
China to lift lockdown in most of Hubei
People who wish to travel in or out of Hubei or Wuhan will be able to as long as they have a "green" health code issued by authorities.
But schools in the province will remain closed.
New cases have slowed dramatically over the last month, although the first locally transmitted infection in nearly a week was reported in Wuhan Tuesday, along with three cases elsewhere in the country.
But the figures pale in comparison to imported cases, which reached 74 nationwide on Tuesday - a trend that has fuelled anxiety about a possible second wave of infections just as authorities appeared to be bringing the country's outbreak under control.
Seven more people died, the National Health Commission said, all in Wuhan.
The 74 imported cases were the most since officials started reporting the data at the beginning of March, and the number was nearly double that reported Monday.
As nations across the globe battle to contain the pandemic, which has now killed more than 16,500 people worldwide, the total tally of imported cases in China has soared to 427.
Many cities have brought in tough rules to quarantine arrivals, and all Beijing-bound international flights are being diverted to other urban centres where passengers are screened for the virus.
Authorities in Beijing said Tuesday that anyone entering China via another city and then making their way to the capital in the last two weeks would also be tested for the virus and told to enter quarantine.
Shanghai and Beijing each reported a locally-transmitted infection Tuesday that came from an imported patient.
State media warned of a second wave from abroad, with the nationalistic Global Times saying on its front page that "inadequate quarantine measures" meant it was "highly likely, even inevitable".
There have now been more than 81,000 cases in China and the death toll has reached 3,277.
