China has passed a new law to improve its handling of disease outbreaks -- including protecting whistleblowers -- following a cascade of criticism over its coronavirus response and accusations of an early cover-up.

A Chinese experimental coronavirus vaccine being developed by the Institute of Medical Biology under the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences was shown to be safe in an early stage clinical trial, researchers said.

China's Covid-19 vaccine development programme is in a "leading position" and Beijing is on track to produce over 600 million doses by the end of the year, officials said Friday.

Hundreds of cinemas reopened in scores of Chinese cities Monday after a six-month nationwide shutdown due to the coronavirus, highlighting its success in taming an epidemic still raging in parts of the world.

Officials in Beijing are carrying out nucleic acid tests on all food and parcel delivery personnel as they ramp up efforts to rein in an outbreak of the coronavirus in the Chinese capital, state-backed Beijing News reported

Several districts of the Chinese capital put up security checkpoints, closed schools and ordered people to be tested for the coronavirus on Monday after an unexpected spike of cases linked to the biggest wholesale food

Beijing closed two markets on Friday and delayed the return of primary school students after three fresh coronavirus cases emerged in the capital -- the first after two months of no infections in the city.

The novel coronavirus may have been spreading in China as early as August 2019, according to Harvard Medical School research based on satellite images of hospital travel patterns and search engine data.

China said 300 symptomless carriers of the novel coronavirus in Wuhan, the epicentre of the pandemic, had not been found to be infectious

Beijing resident Wang Yukun was happy to comply in April when the construction firm he works for told him he'd need to take a test for the novel coronavirus before he could come back to work, even though he was at low risk of having the disease.

Wuhan plans to conduct coronavirus tests on the Chinese city's entire population after new cases emerged for the first time in weeks in the cradle of the global pandemic, state media reported Tuesday.

China reported one new coronavirus case for Friday, unchanged from the day before, data from the national health authority showed on Saturday.