China is battling the worst outbreak of Covid-19 since March 2020, with one province posting a record daily rise in cases, as an independent panel reviewing the global pandemic said China could have acted more forcefully to curb the initial outbreak.

State-backed tabloid the Global Times has defended China's early handling of the pandemic, saying no country had any experience in dealing with the completely new virus. “Looking back, no country could perform perfectly in facing a novel virus [...] no country can guarantee they won't make mistakes if a similar epidemic occurs again,” it said.

China reported more than 100 new cases for a seventh day on Tuesday. Mainland China posted 118 new cases on Jan 18, up from 109 a day earlier, the national health authority said in a statement.

Of those, 106 were local infections, with 43 reported in Jilin, a new daily record for the northeastern province, and 35 in Hebei province, which surrounds Beijing, the National Health Commission said.