In case you get a paywall: China Locks Down City at Center of Virus’s Outbreak Wuhan to halt all outbound flights and trains as authorities try to stem spread of new pneumonia-like illness ahead of Lunar New Year; death toll jumps to 17 Spreading quickly from its epicenter in the city of Wuhan, a potentially lethal virus has sickened hundreds around China and reached the U.S., Japan and South Korea. Photo: Yonhap News/Zuma Press By Shan Li, James T. Areddy and Chao Deng Updated Jan. 22, 2020 7:09 pm ET WUHAN, China—The city in central China where a new coronavirus originated will halt outbound flights and trains and shut its public-transportation system, the Chinese government said, a dramatic escalation in the battle to contain a pneumonia outbreak that has killed at least 17 people. The decision to lock down Wuhan, a major travel hub and a city of 11 million, comes as the country is entering one of its busiest travel periods, its Lunar New Year holiday. Hundreds of millions will travel across China and outside the country, increasing the risk of transmission for the virus. After days in which authorities appeared reluctant to impose sweeping bans on the movement of the general public in Wuhan, the mood began to shift on Monday, when the number of confirmed cases jumped and health authorities confirmed the virus could be transmitted between humans. That day, President Xi Jinping gave his first public direction to officials to work with international authorities and share information more openly. Since then, as the number of deaths and confirmed cases has risen, authorities in Wuhan have stepped up their own countermeasures. The lockdown will begin at 10 a.m. local time on Thursday and continue for an indefinite period, Wuhan health authorities said. Service on subways, city buses, long-distance coaches and ferries will also be suspended. Many of the top comments on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like microblogging service, have been supportive of the city at the epicenter of the outbreak and the government’s efforts to contain the virus. “Wuhan, we are in this together. You are one city but part of the country. Please don’t lose hope. The dark days will pass,” read a post that got more than 15,000 likes. Chinese authorities have suggested that the newly identified coronavirus is spreading between people primarily through coughing, kissing or contact with saliva. The number of infections from the new pneumonia-causing coronavirus has multiplied in recent days, with 547 confirmed cases in mainland China as of Thursday, according to state broadcaster China Central Television and local Chinese authorities, up from more than 300 announced on Tuesday. Public anxiety, the holiday and cold, wet weather had cleared many from Wuhan’s streets, restaurants, subway and airport by Wednesday, but the entrances to front-line hospitals were busy, with patients’ relatives dropping off food and other daily supplies. “My dad is 65, and he’s right in that vulnerable age of danger,” said a woman waiting inside the Wuhan Medical Treatment Center, also known as Jinyintan Hospital, in a newish northern section of the city. She said her father had suffered a high fever for several days and been transferred to the center—where staffers donned blue surgical-type gowns, as did some police officers who fit them over their uniforms and wore plastic shields over their faces—from a different city hospital the day before for additional testing. She said doctors didn’t know whether he had the virus. “I’m very afraid for his health,” she said. From its initial emergence in a seafood and livestock market in Wuhan, the virus has spread across China and into the U.S., Japan, South Korea and Thailand. In Hong Kong, health authorities on Thursday said they were investigating two patients who are suspected of having been infected with the new coronavirus, in what would be the Chinese territory’s first confirmed cases. One of the patients, a 39-year-old man from Wuhan, had arrived in Hong Kong on Tuesday, Hong Kong Food and Health Secretary Sophia Chan said at a press conference. Preliminary examinations had shown the man testing positive for the virus, Ms. Chan said. The other is a 56-year-old Hong Kong resident who traveled to Wuhan this month to visit relatives, authorities said. Additionally, across the Pearl River, the Chinese territory of Macau confirmed its first case on Wednesday: a 52-year-old woman who had taken a high-speed train from Wuhan, Chinese state media reported. New coronavirus cases on Chinese mainland, by province More than 400 (originating province) 10 to 26 BEIJING Beijing 2 to 9 1 CHINA Shanghai Wuhan HUBEI ZHEJIANG Shenzhen GUANGDONG Note: Totals as of midnight Beijing time, Jan. 22 Sources: China Central Television; Chinese local health authorities Several other provinces and territories in China, including Fujian, Anhui, Liaoning and Guizhou, announced their first confirmed infection cases on Wednesday, according to CCTV and local Chinese authorities. The province of Hubei, of which Wuhan is the capital and largest city, late Wednesday reported a total 444 confirmed cases, up from 270 announced the previous day. It has been the only region to report deaths from the virus so far—rising to 17 from six a day earlier. Outside mainland China, health authorities have tallied at least three infected patients in Thailand, and one each in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. On Tuesday, health officials confirmed that a man who had recently arrived in Washington state after a visit to Wuhan had become the U.S.’s first confirmed case. The World Health Organization on Wednesday postponed for a day a decision on whether to declare that the outbreak constitutes a public-health emergency of international concern. That designation would help mobilize resources to prevent the virus’s spread. After debating the matter for hours, the emergency committee was split on the decision, said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO’s director-general. “It was clear that to proceed, we need more information,” Dr. Tedros said. The agency has a team in China trying to answer important questions such as how transmissible the virus is and what is being done to contain it, he said. “The situation is evolving very rapidly,” said Didier Houssin, chairman of the WHO’s emergency committee, who is an adviser to the French Agency for Food, Environment and Occupational Health and Safety. Coronavirus Cases A newly identified virus that originated in a livestock market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan has spread across China and into the U.S. LOCATION CASES DEATHS Mainland China 546 17 Thailand 3 Japan 1 Macau 1 South Korea 1 Taiwan 1 U.S. 1 New cases in Mainland China LOCATION CASES DEATHS Hubei 444 17 Guangdong 26 Beijing 14 Zhejiang 10 Shanghai 9 Chongqing 6 Sichuan 5 Henan 5 Hunan 4 Tianjin 4 Hainan 4 Jiangxi 2 Liaoning 2 Shandong 2 Guangxi 2 Yunnan 1 Anhui 1 Guizhou 1 Fujian 1 Shanxi 1 Ningxia 1 Hebei 1 Note: Totals as of midnight Beijing time, Jan. 22 Sources: China Central Television; local governments The start of the Lunar New Year this week has prompted fears of a repeat of the crisis involving severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, which spread through China in late 2002 and early 2003, also overlapping with the holiday. SARS, caused by a different strain of coronavirus, spread globally and killed 774 people after its emergence in southern China. Public-health officials are particularly concerned about the new virus because there are many unknowns. It is unclear, for example, how many people have actually been infected, and how transmissible it is from one person to another. The more it spreads, the greater the chance of a mutation that could make the virus even deadlier, scientists say. Some experts have questioned whether China has been too slow in providing updates to the international health community. “It is still not transparent enough,” said Harry Yi-Jui Wu, director of medical ethics and humanities at the University of Hong Kong, while calling on the Chinese government to provide better updates on cases outside of Wuhan. “It should communicate more effectively with citizens, instead of reiterating a wishful phrase saying, ‘Disease is in general controllable.’ ” In Beijing, Chinese health officials said at a briefing on Wednesday that they are still working to understand more about the virus, while pledging to release timely information. This week, Zhong Nanshan, one of the country’s best-known epidemiologists, confirmed suspicions that the novel coronavirus was spreading between humans, which would allow the disease to be transmitted among people who don’t interact with any animals. The virus is believed to have spread to humans from animals at the Wuhan market. Chinese hospitals are stepping up preventive measures, health officials said. Hubei province plans to ask the national government for emergency aid, the official Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily reported on Wednesday. Hubei is short of face masks, the report said. Chinese authorities have yet to determine which animal originally harbored the virus and passed it on to humans, although they have said it was likely a wild animal. They also have yet to announce what they believe is the incubation period for the disease, or the time it takes for infected patients to start showing symptoms. As China’s government races to find out more about how the disease is spreading, itis paying attention to the possibility of superspreaders—infected patients who have been able to pass on the virus to several people—Gao Fu, a director at China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said at the government’s press briefing. On Tuesday, the epidemiologist Dr. Zhong, who leads an expert committee organized by the Beijing government, said one patient in Wuhan had infected more than a dozen medical staff. But Mr. Gao said there was no evidence yet of superspreaders. One reason SARS spread so quickly nearly two decades ago was because some individuals were able to transmit the disease to dozens of others. At Wuhan Lung Hospital, another facility designated to treat virus patients, people huddled outside a quarantine ward that serves as a preliminary location for testing. One man said his 39-year-old wife had been admitted on Monday after developing a high fever and troubled breathing. Doctors said tests would confirm within a day whether she had the new virus, but 48 hours later, he said, there had been no update. “Specialists from Beijing have come, but there are so many people sick that they’re overwhelmed,” he said. “I hope it’s normal pneumonia and she can leave soon, but when you hear nothing you get worried.” —Yijun Yin, Lucy Craymer, Liyan Qi, Betsy McKay and Yoko Kubota contributed to this article.