A city in northern China is building a 3,000-unit quarantine facility to deal with an anticipated overflow of patients as Covid-19 cases rise ahead of the Lunar New Year travel rush, AP reported .

State media on Friday showed crews leveling earth, pouring concrete and assembling pre-fabricated rooms in farmland outside Shijiazhuang, the provincial capital of Hebei province that has seen the bulk of new cases.

That recalled scenes last year, when China rapidly built field hospitals and turned gymnasiums into isolation centres to cope with the initial outbreak linked to the central city of Wuhan.