Henan

Almost 90% of the residents of China's third most populous province are infected with COVID-19, AFP reported, citing a senior Chinese official.

It comes a day after China lifted travel restrictions requiring mandatory quarantine after returning from abroad and reports of heightened demand for tickets and congestion at borders.

Almost 90 percent of people in China's third most populous province have now been infected with Covid-19, a top official said Monday, as the country battles an unprecedented surge in cases.

Kan Quancheng, director of the health commission for central Henan province, told a press conference that "as of January 6, 2023, the province's Covid infection rate is 89.0 percent.

China has confirmed the first known human case of the H3N8 strain of avian flu, but health authorities say there is a low risk of widespread transmission among people.

H3N8 is known to have been circulating since 2002 after first emerging in North American waterfowl. It is known to infect horses, dogs and seals, but has not previously been detected in humans.

Beijing urged Washington to stop "demonizing" China on July 26 as rancour marked the start of talks with the highest-level U.S. envoy to visit under President Joe Biden's administration.

Tens of thousands of people were being evacuated from flood-hit regions of central China on July 22 as officials raised the death toll from heavy rains that have deluged Henan province for almost a week to 33 people.

Turkey on July 21 extended condolences to Beijing over deadly flooding in central China.

"We are deeply saddened that the floods in the Henan province of the People's Republic of China (PRC) have claimed more than 25 lives and resulted in the evacuation of many people from the area," the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Large areas of land in the central Chinese province of Henan were under water.
The capital, Zhengzhou, was hit the hardest after being hit by the deadly rains, as meteorologists said, "worst in the last 1.000 years".
At least 12 people died as a result of the floods.

Large swathes of China's central Henan province were under water on July 20, with at least a dozen people dead in its capital Zhengzhou after the city was drenched by what weather watchers said was the heaviest rain in 1,000 years.    

The death toll in China from the novel coronavirus outbreak has climbed to 56, local media reported on Jan. 26.

"During the past 24 hours, 688 new confirmed cases, 1,309 new suspected cases and 15 deaths from the disease (13 in Hubei, one in Shanghai and one in Henan) were reported," Xinhua news agency said in a report, citing China's National Health Commission.

A woman was killed and 12 people injured after a guy attacked a knife at a shopping center in Beijing's Sidan district, Reuters reported, citing police.

The attacker was detained. Only his surname was reported, Chu, 35 years from the northern province of Henan. He said he had committed the attack "as an expression of dissatisfaction," but he did not specify what.