China closed off the city of Wuhan in an unprecedented effort to try to control the spread of the new coronavirus. Wuhan has shut down public transportation, including railway stations, the airport, bus and subway services.

The number of people in China diagnosed with the novel coronavirus 2019-nCoV has reached 617 as of 09:00 Moscow time, according to China’s regional health commission report. The largest number of cases (444) was reported in the Hubei province. The region accounts for all 17 deaths recorded to date. The disease has already crossed borders with sporadic cases registered in Thailand, South Korea, the United States and Japan.

On December 31, 2019, the Chinese authorities informed the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia strain in the city of Wuhan in central China. On January 7, 2020, Chinese specialists identified the 2019-nCoV coronavirus as the culprit. All cases of the suspected pneumonia were lab tested. As a result, infectious 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.