Sharjah24 – AFP: The number of Covid-19 cases in China reached the highest since March 2020 on Monday, 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 re-opened.

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.

On Monday there were 223 cases more reported in China, including another 80 in the virus-hit port city of Tianjin, and nine more, including Omicron cases, in the key manufacturing hub of Guangdong.

Athletes and officials have already started to land in the capital ahead of the Games, immediately entering a tightly-controlled bubble that separates them entirely from the rest of the population.

But after a local Omicron case was detected over the weekend, authorities have also tightened regulations for those arriving in the capital from elsewhere in China.