Almost 250 million people in China might have caught Covid-19 in the first 20 days of December. The figure is according to an internal estimate of Beijing Health Officials, accessed by the Financial Times and Bloomberg News. The numbers were reportedly presented in an internal meeting of the National Health Commission.

China: Covid-19 cases explode; Beijing underplaying health emergency

The National Health Commission reported 80 locally transmitted confirmed COVID-19 cases on the Chinese mainland in the last 24 hours, 45 of which were in Shanghai and 22 in Beijing.

China logs 80 new local Covid-19 cases, 45 in Shanghai; 22 in Beijing

More than four years after ending its controversial one-child policy, China is considering additional measures to increase its flagging birthrate. For decades, China enforced strict controls on additional births in the name of preserving scarce resources for its burgeoning economy.

China looks for measures to lift flagging birthrate

Mainland China reported a rise in new confirmed cases of coronavirus on Thursday, reversing three straight days of declines, because of a spike in new infections in Wuhan, the city at the centre of the outbreak.

China coronavirus infections spike in central city of Wuhan

China's death toll from the coronavirus epidemic rose to 2,442 on Sunday after the government said 97 more people had died, all but one of them in the epicentre of Hubei province.

Coronavirus: China reports another 97 virus deaths, nearly 650 new cases