BEIJING, January 21. /TASS/. Authorities in the city of Wuhan in central China have introduced restrictions on holding public events. All crowded gatherings "that have no urgency" will be cancelled, the statement issued on Tuesday says.
In accordance with the decision taken, certain tourist attractions — museums, temples and parks — either temporarily shut down or introduced special working hours. Certain celebrations marking the upcoming Lunar New Year and nationwide weeklong holidays (January 24-30) were postponed to a later date or cancelled altogether. Some public spaces require their visitors to put on protective masks.
The key goal behind the decision is to reduce the number of people in the streets. In light of this, the Chinese Civil Aviation Administration announced new rules saying that passengers cancelling their plans to travel to or from Wuhan will be eligible for a full refund without any penalties. Similar measures were introduced for railway passengers.
On Tuesday, the number of people who died from the new form of pneumonia in China has risen to six. According to the statistics published, most cases are concentrated in Wuhan (270 out of 291) where the disease originated. Five more people are taken to hospitals in Beijing, 14 cases are identified in the southern Guangdong Province and two people are known to have contracted it in Shanghai. Authorities have quarantined 54 more people across 14 regions of the country who are suspected of having the new pneumonia as they have exhibited similar symptoms.
On December 31, Chinese authorities informed the World Health Organization about an outbreak of an unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhah in central China. On January 7, Chinese experts identified the infecting agent — coronavirus 2019-nCoV. All cases of the suspected pneumonia were lab tested. As a result, infecting agents of such diseases as flu, bird flu, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) were excluded from the list of possible pathogens.