UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 29, 2020. Head of the Russian Tourist Industry Union’s Ural division and Director at Ural Tourism Association Mikhail Maltsev said at a press conference in Yekaterinburg that no packaged trips to China were sold to Russian tourists at the moment.

‘Rostourism issued a recommendation last Friday, suggesting all the market players put their sales of trips to China on hold. In practical terms, this means travel agents wishing to stay on the market and to play it legal will have to stop selling packaged tours to China. As a matter of fact, all the business followed the recommendation in question. Matters were made a bit more complicated by the fact that Rostourism only made the announcement late on Friday night, with a full weekend ahead. So a large 345-seat plane did leave Yekaterinburg before this,’ Maltsev said.

Now the Chinese authorities reported an outbreak of pneumonia (etymology unclear) in Wuhan, China’s Hubei province, at the end of December. 106 people have been reported dead and 4,500+ people infected.