Huanggang

Also, six officials in the city of Huanggang, next to Wuhan in Hubei province, were fired over “poor performance” in handling the outbreak, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

At least eight cities have been shut down —- Wuhan, Ezhou, Huanggang, Chibi, Qianjiang, Zhijiang, Jingmen and Xiantao — all in central China’s Hubei province, where the illness has been concentrated.

China’s Hubei province houses Wuhan; the city that recorded the first case and other cities such as Yichang, Siyang, Jingzhou, Huanggang and Xiangyin.

It is the second such hospital to have opened in China - after the first coronavirus hospital opened in Huanggang last Tuesday.

Several of the cities have populations numbering several million, led by Huanggang, which has 7.5 million.