At least 17 cities in the province have been placed under a lockdown, stranding tens of millions of people amid the Chinese New Year holiday, the country's peak migration season.

Thousands have been infected with the deadly virus.

In a press conference on Jan. 27 evening, Hubei vice governor Yang Yunyan said authorities have designated 112 medical institutions to treat patients with the deadly novel coronavirus, according to Chinese state media. They have freed up around 100,000 hospital beds in the province, with 3,000 of them in Wuhan city alone, where the disease first broke out.