NEW YORK - Ten patients in the Empire State are being tested for possibly contracting the coronavirus, Gov. Andrew Cuomo's office confirmed Tuesday.

The New York State Department of Health has sent samples for the individuals to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for testing with seven found to be negative and three more still pending.

So far, there are no confirmed cases in New York State.

State officials say the risk of contraction in New York is low, but they urge caution in the wake of the flu-like virus that has killed 81 people in China and infected 2,750.

With New York City being home to the largest Chinese population outside of China, and as travel increases ahead of Lunar New Year celebrations, officials asked New Yorkers to be extra cautious.

"We are asking New Yorkers to do is that is if they have traveled to Wuhan in the last 14 days, and they find themselves with symptoms of fever and a cough or shortness of breath, that they contact their provider and share this information," Dr. Oxiris Barbot, New York City's health commissioner, said Friday.

Symptoms of the virus include:

• Runny nose
• Headache
• Cough
• Sore throat
• Fever

The virus can also cause wheezing and pneumonia. It is a member of the coronavirus family that's a close cousin to the deadly SARS and MERS viruses that have caused outbreaks in the past.

China on Monday expanded its sweeping efforts to contain a deadly virus, extending the Lunar New Year holiday to keep the public at home and avoid spreading infection as the death toll rose to 81.

Mongolia closed its vast border with China, and Hong Kong and Malaysia announced they would bar entry to visitors from the Chinese province at the center of the outbreak following a warning by medical officials that the virus's ability to spread was growing. Travel agencies were ordered to cancel group tours nationwide, adding to the rising economic losses.

Stock markets around the world were down sharply Monday as the lockdown in Chinese cities was expected to stifle travel, shopping and business for millions of people. Though markets in much of Asia, including China, were closed for the Lunar New Year, they slumped more than 2 percent in Japan and across Europe. Wall Street was expected to drop on the open and the international price of oil was down a sharp 4 percent.

China's increasingly drastic containment efforts began with the January 22 suspension of plane, train and bus links to Wuhan, a city of 11 million people in central China where the virus was first detected last month. That lockdown has expanded to 17 cities with more than 50 million people in the most far-reaching disease-control measures ever imposed.

The end of the Lunar New Year holiday, China's busiest travel season, was pushed back to Sunday from Thursday to "reduce mass gatherings'' and "block the spread of the epidemic,'' a Cabinet statement said.

The government of Shanghai, a metropolis of 25 million people and a global business center, extended the Lunar New York holiday by an additional week within the city to February 9. It ordered sports stadiums to close and religious events to cancel.

Tens of millions of people in China and around Asia had been due to crowd into planes, trains, and buses to return to work after visiting their hometowns or tourist sites for the holiday. Schools will postpone reopening until further notice, the Cabinet said.

The death toll rose Monday when the southern island province of Hainan in the South China Sea reported its first fatality, an 80-year-old woman whose family arrived from Wuhan on January 17.

Hubei province, where Wuhan is located, has accounted for 76 of the deaths reported so far. There have been one each in Shanghai and the provinces of Hebei in the north, Heilongjiang in the northeast, and Henan in central China.

The spread of the illness is being watched around the globe, with a small number of cases appearing in other countries. South Korea confirmed its fourth case Monday. Cases also have been confirmed in Thailand, Taiwan, Japan, the U.S., Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Nepal, France, Canada, and Australia.

The U.S. cases are in Washington state, Chicago, southern California, and Arizona.

The U.S. has five confirmed cases of the new virus from China, all among people who traveled to the city at the center of the outbreak, health officials said Sunday.

Two new cases were reported Sunday — one in Los Angeles County in California and the other in Maricopa County, Arizona. The latter case was someone with ties to Arizona State University who did not live in school housing and had a history of travel to Wuhan, China, state health officials said.

Officials with the Arizona Department of Health Services said the Maricopa County patient wasn't severely ill and was in isolation at home to keep the illness from spreading. The department said it would not release potentially identifying information on the person, including the gender and age, and declined to say whether the person was a student or faculty member.

The LA patient alerted authorities that he wasn't feeling well upon arriving at Los Angeles International Airport. The patient was taken by ambulance to a hospital, health officials said at a Sunday news conference.

"Everything worked as it should," said Dr. Sharon Balter with the LA County Department of Public Health. "The patient presented for care, the patient was immediately transported to a hospital, the patient has remained in the hospital.”

Officials did not provide details about the patient, except to say that the individual was a traveler from Wuhan, China.

The three previously reported cases were a patient in Orange County, California; a man in his 30s in Washington state; and a woman in her 60s from Chicago.

The U.S. patients generally have been reported to be in good condition and were hospitalized in isolation for monitoring.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expects many more Americans to be diagnosed with the newly discovered virus, which is believed to have an incubation period of about two weeks, as worldwide the number of confirmed cases nears 2,000. The CDC is screening passengers on direct and connecting flights from Wuhan at five major airports in Atlanta, Chicago, New York City, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

CDC officials noted Sunday that more than two dozen people who had been suspected of having the illness ended up testing negative.

Guidance from the CDC advises that people who have had casual contact with the patient are at "minimal risk" for developing infection.

China also reported eight cases in Hong Kong and five in Macao. Dr. Chuang Shuk-kwan, the head of Hong Kong's communicable disease branch, said the city's eight cases all have Hubei ties, so there was no sign yet that it is spreading to Hong Kong's general population.

Mongolia is the second country to close its border with China, following North Korea. Neither has reported any cases of the virus. Mongolia also closed its schools, universities and playgrounds for more than a month — until March 2.

China's No. 2 leader, Premier Li Keqiang, visited Wuhan to "guide epidemic prevention work,'' the Cabinet website said. Photos showed Li, in a blue smock and green face mask, meeting hospital employees.

Later, the premier, wearing a face mask and a dark windbreaker, visited a supermarket in the beleaguered city. Shoppers, also wearing masks, cheered to him, "Happy New Year!''

"To get the epidemic under control in Wuhan and the good health of people in Wuhan will be good news for the whole country,'' Li told the crowd.

Elsewhere, the Potala Palace in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, closed indefinitely to tourists on Monday. The former imperial palace in Beijing closed Friday until further notice and other major tourist sites also have shut down, including two of Hong Kong's most popular tourist attractions, Hong Kong Disneyland and Ocean Park.

The disruption to industry and consumer spending threaten to depress Chinese economic growth that Beijing is struggling to shore up after it sank to a multi-decade low of 6.1 percent last year. That could spread shockwaves to other Asian economies that rely on China as a source of tourists and export markets.

Chinese regulators called on banks and insurers Monday to support to people and companies affected by the outbreak. The biggest impact will be on travel, hotels, and restaurants but Chinese retail spending, factory output, and investment also would suffer if the outbreak and quarantines last, forecasters say.

The outbreak is a "notable downside risk'' to growth, though it "could potentially be a high impact but short-lived event,'' said Tommy Wu and Priyanka Kishore of Oxford Economics in a report.

They pointed to the example of the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak, when economic activity plunged but recovered relatively quickly. The impact should be "less severe'' than SARS because of faster official reaction and "increased transparency,'' they said.

Abroad, economies including Hong Kong, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, and Philippines with big tourism industries that rely on Chinese travelers "seem most at risk,'' said Wu and Kishore.

The U.S. Consulate in Wuhan said it was arranging to evacuate its diplomats and some American citizens on Tuesday. The French government said it would fly its citizens in Wuhan to France and quarantine them there. Japan also was preparing to fly its citizens out of Wuhan.

French automaker PSA Peugeot Citroen, which has a factory in Wuhan, said it was moving foreign employees and their families by bus to be quarantined in another city.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said his government is considering evacuating its estimated 90 citizens in Wuhan.

The National Health Commission said 2,744 cases in mainland China were confirmed by midnight Sunday. The youngest patient is a 9-month-old girl in Beijing.

China's health minister, Ma Xiaowei, said the country was entering a "crucial stage" as "it seems like the ability of the virus to spread is getting stronger."

President Xi Jinping has called the outbreak a grave situation and said the government was stepping restrictions on travel and public gatherings while rushing medical staff and supplies to Wuhan.

The epidemic has revived memories of the SARS outbreak that originated in China and killed nearly 800 people. Then, Chinese authorities were criticized for reacting slowly and failing to disclose information. The government has responded more aggressively to the latest outbreak.

The National Health Commission said anyone traveling from Wuhan is required to register with community health stations and quarantine themselves at home for 14 days — the virus' maximum incubation period.

Hong Kong announced it would bar entry to travelers from Hubei, starting Monday. Hong Kong residents returning from the area will be allowed into the territory but were told to quarantine themselves at home.

Also Sunday, Wuhan banned most vehicle use, including private cars, in downtown areas.

Wuhan is building two hospitals, one with 1,500 beds and another with 1,000, for the growing number of patients. The first is scheduled to be finished next week.

The virus is from the coronavirus family that includes the common cold but also more severe illnesses like SARS and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome. The new virus causes cold- and flu-like symptoms, including cough and fever, and in more severe cases, shortness of breath and pneumonia.

The virus is thought to have spread to people from wild animals sold at a market in Wuhan. On Sunday, authorities banned trade in wild animals and urged people to stop eating meat from them.