BEIJING, Feb. 5 (Xinhua) -- Beijing has published a notice to ban dinner gatherings as a step to strengthen the prevention and control of the novel coronavirus outbreak, according to a press conference Wednesday.

The notice requires that catering service operators and individuals are prohibited from organizing and undertaking any type of dinner gathering, said Chen Yankai, deputy director of Beijing municipal bureau for market regulation, at the press conference.

For those who have already made reservations for dinners, the catering service operators should contact them as soon as possible and immediately cancel the dinner party or postpone the event, according to the notice.

For rural areas, the notice stipulates that collective dinners are not allowed in any form during the epidemic prevention and control stage.

Currently, there are more than 87,000 catering enterprises in Beijing, and more than 11,500 catering units are still in business, accounting for about 13 percent of the capital's catering stores.

(Photo: VCG)