Health experts say the spread of the coronavirus is reaching a critical moment as the disease has spread to around 30 countries and could soon outstrip attempts at containment.
The border between Turkey and Iran has been closed, while Austria has halted trains from Italy over fears of infected passengers entering the country.
In the UK four passengers evacuated from the Diamond Princess cruise liner tested positive for coronavirus and have been transferred to special infection centres.
Is the spread of the coronavirus about to get worse, or can efforts to contain it succeed?
The Claim
The Guardian reports that medical experts are warning the world is facing a "tipping point" in the spread of the coronavirus.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization, said the international community needed to work together quickly before the window of opportunity to prevent the further spread of the disease was closed.
Simply put, at the rate the disease is spreading it will soon hit a point where the number of people infected shoots up into the category of global pandemic.
As more people have the disease that in turn exposes more people to the risk of it, which in turn leads to more people being infected by the virus and exposes even more people. As people travel around the world they can help introduce the coronavirus to other parts of the planet.
More cases are being reported on different continents and the virus will spread even further unless governments can stop it.
Restricting people's movement and quarantining those infected helps, but time appears to be running out before the virus will spread faster than governments could hope to contain it.
The Counter Claim
The spread of the disease would have been far worse without current efforts to contain the virus, although a greater effort is needed there have been many countries which have responded with vigilance.
Closing transport links, quarantining potential infected individuals and other methods of preventing the virus spreading has thus far stopped the disease from becoming a pandemic, according to WHO spokesperson Margaret Harris.
Dr Phillip Veal, a consultant for the Public Health Agency, previously said the risk to the UK and the Republic of Ireland is low.
He recommended anyone who had been near infected areas and thought they had symptoms to stay at home and call their GP, stressing that going into the local practice or emergency department was the wrong decision as it could spread the virus to others.
Efforts to identify and isolate potential carriers of the coronavirus are in place and appear to have been effective at preventing the spread of the disease.
They might not be able to stop everyone but they have almost certainly helped slow down the transmission rate.
The Facts
Around 77,000 people in China have been infected by the coronavirus and almost 2,600 have died. Over 1,200 confirmed cases have been reported in around 30 other countries with at least 25 dead.
Five of the deaths outside China have been in Italy, the country with the biggest outbreak of the disease in Europe as over 200 people have been infected.
The largest number of recorded cases outside China are in South Korea, with over 830 cases and eight confirmed deaths.
Iran has 61 confirmed cases and 12 people have died, the most of any country outside China, while cases in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait and Bahrain have been recorded as people from Iran have spread the virus.
The UK's top medical officers advise that anyone who has travelled to the UK from mainland China, Thailand, Japan, Republic of Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia or Macau within the last two weeks and are experiencing a cough, fever or shortness of breath to stay indoors and call 111.
Coronavirus has killed more people than SARS despite having a mortality rate at around five times lower because it has a higher transmission rate, thus meaning the disease will spread to more people.
In many cases a calm response is the best answer to potential outbreaks of the virus.
