It’s the largest quarantine in human history, but will it stop the disease?

In response to the new and still poorly understood coronavirus that recently emerged in Wuhan, central China, the Chinese government has placed the city and a dozen others in lockdown — in effect quarantining an estimated 56 million people.

The cities have been sealed off; transportation in and out of them has stopped. Schools are closed, and traditional celebrations for the Lunar New Year have been suspended. Yet as of Monday, at least 80 people had died, more than 2,740 were confirmed to have been infected and cases had been detected in at least 10 other countries.

Other governments have taken similar measures. Hong Kong has banned the arrival of travelers from Hubei Province, where Wuhan is located, and has set up isolation centers in two holiday villages to monitor people who have had contact with carriers of the virus.

Zhong Nanshan, of China’s National Health Commission, is reported to have said that the most effective way to stop the virus, which appears to be spread by droplets, was a quarantine.