Credit...Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times

Here are the latest images as the country confronts a major public health crisis.

A man believed to be Hong Kong’s first Wuhan coronavirus patient being treated on Wednesday.Credit...Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times

The spread of a deadly respiratory virus has prompted the authorities to limit travel in cities in central China, including Wuhan, where the disease was first found last month. It has since spread to at least four other countries.

The outbreak comes just before the start of the Lunar New Year holiday on Friday, as hundreds of millions of people travel across China. Epidemiologists fear that could make the virus harder to contain.

Here’s a look at the public health crisis in photos.

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Credit...Dale De La Rey/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Marking Lunar New Year at Wong Tai Sin temple in Hong Kong. The city is canceling new year celebrations.

Health workers waiting to check the temperature of people entering a subway station in Beijing.

Masks were ubiquitous on trains and other public places in Hong Kong.

China marked a somber Lunar New Year in Beijing.

A site for the construction of a field hospital to treat patients with the coronavirus in Wuhan.

The intensive care unit at Zhongnan Hospital in Wuhan.

Hankou Hospital in Wuhan was overwhelmed on Friday by residents and their families.

Lining up in Hong Kong to get free vitamin C tablets and bottles of hand sanitizer.

As quarantine efforts expanded, health checkpoints were set up on a highway in Wuhan.

A meat vendor in Wuhan.

A railway station in Beijing. China’s expanded restrictions on travel will apply to tens of millions of people.

A supermarket in Wuhan, where masks are now a part of everyday clothing.

A mall in Wuhan. The provincial capital of Hubei is usually busy during the holiday season.

A security guard disinfecting a park in Wuhan.

Paramilitary police officers guarding an entrance to the closed Hankou Railroad Station in Wuhan. Public transit and outbound trains were to stop service at midnight.

A train from Shanghai to Wuhan. Services are usually packed as the Lunar New Year approaches.

Staff members checking the temperature of passengers after a train from Wuhan arrived in Hangzhou, in China’s eastern Zhejiang Province.

Arriving at the nearly deserted Wuhan station.

A hospital worker washing the entrance to the Wuhan Medical Treatment Center, which handled some coronavirus patients.

Officials screening arrivals in Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Travelers arriving at Los Angeles International Airport from China.

Visitors at the Venetian casino hotel resort in Macau, after the region reported its first case of coronavirus.

Medical staff members wearing protective suits at Zhongnan Hospital in Wuhan.

Workers producing face masks at a factory in Handan, in China’s northern Hebei Province.

Hankou train station in Wuhan.

The Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, above on Jan. 17, has been disinfected and closed after it was linked to the coronavirus outbreak.