Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced on Tuesday that travellers who are arriving the city from any foreign country from Thursday onwards will be put under a 14-day home quarantine or medical surveillance.

Lam further said that the decision was made after top officials met expert advisers, who concluded that efforts to curb the spread of the deadly coronavirus in the city should shift to control of imported infections, as the number of cases abroad had exceeded the total in mainland China, where the virus originated last December, the South China Morning Post newspaper reported.

However, the new restrictions would not apply to arrivals from Macau or Taiwan. Those arriving from mainland China were required to isolate at home since last month.

Lam also announced that full resumption of school classes on April 20 was “quite impossible” and the government would continue to not organise any large-scale events.

While announcing the new measure, she did not reveal a date for how long they would be in place.

The death toll due to the COVID-19 outbreak in China has increased to 3,226, authorities said on Tuesday, while the number of confirmed cases in the Asian country has risen to 80,881.

Of the deaths, 12 were in Hubei Province and one in Shaanxi Province, according to the National Health Commission.

The overall confirmed cases on the mainland had reached 80,881 by the end of Monday, including 8,976 patients who were still being treated, 68,679 patients who had been discharged after recovery, and 3,226 people who died of the disease.

The new cases took the city’s tally to 158, including a suspected case, while the death toll stood at four.

Last month, Hong Kong confirmed the virus in 62 patients, two of whom have died. The first infections were largely found within people who had travelled to the epicentre in China’s central Hubei province.

In 2003, 299 Hong Kongers were killed by an outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) — 40 per cent of the global total fatalities.

The novel Coronavirus outbreak has caused alarm as it has crossed global fatalities in the 2002-03 SARS epidemic.