The number of Covid-19 cases in China has reached its highest level since March 2020, as Beijing races to smother outbreaks just three weeks before hosting the Winter Olympics, reports AFP.

The country has reported 223 more cases, including another 80 in the virus-hit port city of Tianjin, and nine more — including cases of the highly transmissible Omicron variant — in the southern 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 separating them from the rest of the population.