China’s state-run lottery services are preparing to reopen for business after an unprecedented shutdown to prevent further spread of the coronavirus.

In January, Chinese authorities announced that all lottery operations would be suspended for a 10-day period starting January 22 to coincide with the annual Lunar New Year celebrations. But before that planned resumption of sales on February 1, the government extended the shutdown for another 10 days rather than have citizens cluster together in small lottery retail offices to buy their tickets.

While the extended shutdown was supposed to be lifted on February 10, no official announcement was forthcoming from the Ministry of Finance, and lottery sales have remained on pause ever since. But reports coming from provincial lottery administration centers suggest the dam is about to break.

On Wednesday, the government’s official lottery site, which has been running endless stories celebrating provincial lottery administrators’ efforts to combat the further spread of the virus by distributing masks and furiously scrubbing things, featured a message from the Zhejiang Sports Lottery Management Center saying it would resume “paper instant lottery sales in industry channels” as of Thursday (27).