The number of Covid-19 cases in China has reached its highest since March 2020, as Beijing races to stamp out the highly transmissible coronavirus variant just three weeks before hosting the Winter Olympics.
China, where the virus first emerged in late 2019, has stuck to a strict policy of targeting zero Covid cases even as the rest of the world has reopened.
But its approach has come under sustained pressure in recent weeks with multiple clusters across the country just as the Games are about to get under way in Beijing.
There were 223 cases reported in China today, including another 80 in the virus-hit port city of Tianjin, and nine more, including Omicron cases, in the key manufacturing hub of Guangdong.