China on Sunday expanded drastic travel restrictions to contain a viral contagion coronavirus that President Xi Jinping said posed a “grave” threat, as the death toll reached 56 and Shanghai reported its first fatality, reports AFP.

China has locked down the worst-hit province of Hubei in the country’s centre in a massive quarantine affecting tens of millions of people to slow the spread of a respiratory illness that has killed 56 people and infected almost 2,000.

The virus has also spread around the world, with cases confirmed in around a dozen other countries as distant as France, Australia and the United States.

In the epicentre city of Wuhan, Hubei’s capital, new restrictions went into effect Sunday banning most cars from the streets of the metropolis of 11 million.