BEIJING, January 24. /TASS/. The Beijing Municipal Health Commission raised the public health threat level to its highest starting Friday 14:00 local time over the coronavirus outbreak, says Lei Haichao, its director.

The city will take emergency measures to control the spread of the virus, he said. At the moment, 29 people have been infected in Beijing, and one patient is in serious but stable condition.

Beijing has already closed the largest cultural institutions and cancelled all public Chinese New Year events.

The Hubei province, where the city of Wuhan is located, has also taken lockdown measures. Wuhan city is the source of the 2019-nCoV coronavirus outbreak.

On December 31, 2019, the Chinese authorities notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of the new type of pneumonia in Wuhan, a city with a population of more than 11 million people. The culprit — the 2019-nCoV coronavirus — was identified on January 7, 2020.

According to the latest data, 849 people were infected with the new disease in China, and 26 of them died. The coronavirus has also been identified in Thailand, Vietnam, South Korea, the US, Singapore and Japan. On January 23, the WHO refrained from declaring an international emergency over the outbreak of the virus that originated in China.