KUCHING: Sixteen foreign visitors have been denied entry into Sarawak since the state government instituted new restrictions on Saturday to prevent a Wuhan coronavirus outbreak in the state.

They comprised of 13 Chinese nationals, an Indonesian and two Hongkong residents, said a brief statement from the Immigration Department, which was made available to the press by the state government’s public communications unit.

Those denied entry had been to China for the past 14 days. The novel coronavirus, also known as 2019-nCov, had originated from Wuhan, the capital of China’s Hubei province.