Making dough figurines, paper-cutting and enjoying traditional Chinese operas, a group of foreigners in Shanghai including some diplomats, teachers and students have spent a good time at the Shanghai Kunqu Opera Theater during the Lantern Festival, which fell on February 5, Sunday this year, the traditional Chinese festival for family reunion.

The Chinese Association of Zoological Gardens (CAZG) extended deep sorrow and regret for the passing of the 25-year-old male giant panda Le Le at the Memphis Zoo in Tennessee, the US on Wednesday, noting that an expert team will be sent to the US to investigate the cause of the panda's death. The related Chinese department is very concerned about the sudden death of the giant panda and has informed the US side to preserve its body properly. A team of Chinese experts will be set up in a timely manner to go to the US zoo to investigate the panda's death together with their US counterparts, the association said in a statement released last Thursday. The Chinese Embassy in the US said it will assist relevant parties in handling the aftermath.

From surging tourism orders and movie box office during the Spring Festival holidays to rising spending on festival products and food for Lantern Festival, holiday shopping boom is prolonged and stronger at the beginning of the Year of the Rabbit in China, as people celebrate keenly while the epidemic has largely come to an end and the domestic economy has showed multiple signs of promising growth.

China's COVID-19 related death tolls halved from the previous weekly total of 6,364 to the most recent week's 3,278. A sharp decline in deaths and the downward trend of COVID-19 infections indicate that China has stepped out of the current wave, observers said on Sunday. China on Saturday reported 3,278 COVID-related deaths across 31 provinces and regions between January 27 and February 2, including 131 deaths caused by respiratory failure and 3,147 deaths from underlying diseases combined with COVID infections, according to a statement released by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC).

China's National Healthcare Security Administration announced the inclusion of labor analgesia and assisted fertility technology in the coverage of medical insurance as part of boarder efforts to safeguard people's reproductive rights and fertility willingness, following the recent adjustments of birth registration in some places. Healthcare authorities have always attached great importance to population issues, the administration said, adding that eligible fertility support medicines, including bromohentine, triprelline and clomiphene, have already been covered by medical insurance, which has helped many patients.

With only less than eight hours to go, the first travel groups in the city of south China's Guangzhou will fly to Dubai from the Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport. As China revives its outbound travel after a nearly three-year suspension due to COVID-19, the New Zealand tourism authority told the Global Time that Chinese visitors' return is a positive step in New Zealand's COVID-19 recovery.

A fatal multi-vehicle collision on a highway in Changsha, Central China's Hunan Province, on Saturday, killed 16 people and injured 66 others, eight of whom were seriously injured, according to a statement released by local authorities on Sunday.

China's first cross-sea high-speed railway, the Fuzhou-Xiamen-Zhangzhou High-speed Railway which connects Fuzhou and Zhangzhou in East China's Fujian Province, passed static acceptance testing on Friday, creating conditions for the opening of the line within the year.

Chinese embassy in the US expressed sadness over the passing of giant panda Le Le at the Memphis Zoo and said it will handle the aftermath and send an expert team to the US to find out the cause of the giant panda.

Chinese travel agencies have been making full preparations for the resumption of outbound group travel services starting from Monday. Industry insiders predict an increase in outbound tour number and clients starting from March.

Central China's Hunan Province will roll out antibody testing services to the public starting from February 7, becoming the latest region in China to conduct such testing after cities such as Beijing and Wuhan in a bid to get an overall picture of immunity among the population and resistance against secondary infection.

Over the past three pandemic-hit years, the number of cross-Straits marriages has dropped by more than 70 percent, the Global Times learned from figures offered by a cross-Straits marriage affairs insider on Friday. The news comes amid recent calls for the secessionist Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authorities to resume normal cross-Straits direct flights to facilitate exchanges with the mainland.

Local discipline inspection commissions across the country including Central China's Hunan Province and Southwest China's Guizhou Province all launched education videos before and after holding plenary meetings, sending a strong signal that the fight against corruption is ongoing, according to the Communist Party of China Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) and the National Supervisory Commission on Friday.

China will scrap quota limitations on personnel exchanges between the mainland and Hong Kong, Macao special administrative regions (SARs), and allow group tours starting from February 6 to fully resume personnel exchanges, the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council announced on Friday.

A Beijing-based expert team has reported the world's first case of a 19-year-old adolescent with Alzheimer's disease (AD), a condition normally associated with elderly people.

A 66-year-old Chinese man was caught by police in Shenyang, Northeast China's Liaoning Province on Thursday after shooting a doctor at a local hospital with a refitted nail gun, according to a police statement.

A tiger cub recently drowned in a pond at Shanghai Zoo, the Global Times learned from the zoo on Thursday.

With the stabilized COVID-19 situation across the Taiwan Straits, the Chinese mainland has urged the Taiwan authorities to further restore direct flights across the Straits in a bid to better deliver benefits to compatriots, according to a mainland spokesperson on Wednesday.

China has added 18 wetlands, bringing the total number of "Wetlands of International Importance" (known as Ramsar sites) across the country to 82, ranking No.4 in the world and covering 7.65 million hectares, China's National Forestry and Grassland Administration announced on Thursday, which marked the 27th World Wetlands Day.

China will build a ground station in Antarctica for ocean observation satellite to promote the high-quality development of marine economy, the Global Times learned from China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC), a leading Chinese high-tech company, on Thursday.

Police in Qianshan, East China's Jiangxi Province, confirmed during a press conference on Thursday that Hu Xinyu, a 15-year-old student who had been missing for more than three months, ended his own life by hanging, providing closure in a case that has drawn significant attention on Chinese social media platforms.

All inbound travelers from South Korea to China must undergo COVID-19 testing upon arrival, and those testing positive will have to quarantine at home, according to Chinese airlines, as China further escalates its countermeasures against South Korea's discriminatory travel curbs.

China is seeing a downward trend in terms of the number of COVID-19 outpatients, severe cases and deaths in hospitals, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Chinese CDC) said in a report on COVID-19 data on Wednesday.

"We still remember when Lao Ma first entered the outer field of the Bear Hall to explore. It was a beautiful sunny spring. Lao Ma sat next to the flowers and looked up at the butterflies. The warm wind blew from the city, quietly accompanying Lao Ma."

After three years of the COVID-19 pandemic, global businesses were glad to see Chinese visitors once again arriving at their local tourist attractions and shopping malls over the just concluded Spring Festival holidays. The recovery of Chinese outbound tourism has injected strong vitality to overseas tourism and consumer markets, industry insiders commented.

China will ramp up efforts to stand on its own feet in science and technology and solve the issue of foreign stranglehold in the sphere, as part of a push for the country to become a global forerunner in key technological areas, according to key takeaways from the top leadership on Tuesday.

A recent survey conducted by the Global Times Research Center with 405 mid and senior-level executives from domestic and overseas companies showed that more than half of the respondents are either very or relatively confident of China's economic recovery in the next three years, higher than their confidence in Asian and global markets, reflecting the buoyed sentiment among global businesses as Chinese economy rebounds at a faster-than-expected speed following optimization of COVID measures.

After China reversed its temporary rules in place during the COVID-19 pandemic allowing online courses from overseas universities to be delivered to students within China, Chinese students - especially those enrolled at universities in the Southern Hemisphere - are rushing to prepare for a return.

Beijing released specific rules on experiments relating to COVID-19 and banned any activities that fall beyond regulatory approval, the capital's health authority said in a newly released notice, in a move to further strengthen COVID-19 laboratory biosafety.

The first batch of about 30 cross-border pupils returned to Hong Kong on Wednesday for face-to-face classes, as this group of students has not been able to attend classes in Hong Kong due to pandemic restrictions since 2020.

Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region will further accelerate the construction of airports during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25), with a planned eight airports to be built by 2025, bringing the total number of civilian airports in the region to 33, according to the Xinjiang Daily on Wednesday.

No local infections linked to Omicron variant CH.1.1 have been found on the Chinese mainland so far and the variant is unlikely to lead to large-scale domestic transmission in the short term, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Chinese CDC) said on late Tuesday night in response to the public concern over the new variant that has been detected in over 60 countries.

In a notification letter sent by the Sanlitun sub-district administrative office on December 25, 2022, all bars on the street are to be closed down, as the "housing structure is not suitable for operation, which seriously affects the overall safety."

Following the World Health Organization' (WHO) Monday decision to still treat the COVID-19 pandemic as a global health emergency, some senior Chinese public health experts said it was a cautious decision considering the imbalance between countries in immunity, medicine and therapy as well as potential risks of more infection waves. While some countries such as Japan and the US are planning to end or downgrade their emergency status or epidemic management in the coming months, experts warned that the conditions for dropping the guard against the disease are still immature.

Scientists with the Northwest A&F University successfully saw the births of three cloned cows with highly desired traits in Northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region recently, marking the first successful effort by Chinese scientists to collect, restore and conserve the germplasm resource of "super cows" in China with the somatic cell nuclear transfer method and efficiently reproduce them.

Beijing launched regulations on outdoor business of qualified brand in business areas and kicked off trials to recover and expand consumption with experts saying that it is the business model that is the most accessible to consumers and the best choice to regain yan huo qi in the post-epidemic period.

An official from the Beijing Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Beijing CDC) said the capital's COVID-19 infection is drawing to a close, thanks to temporary immunity built during the infection peak. Whisking away the Chinese New Year travel rush's risk for the city, the official also said Beijing is set to conduct an investigation of its population's serum antibody levels during February and March, for reference for future COVID-19 control.

A visitor became emotional and smashed statues of hated Chinese historical figures including Qin Hui with an iron plate during a visit in Taihao mausoleum in Central China's Henan Province where Yue Fei temple is located. The tourist attraction released a notice on Monday that the local police have started investigating the case and called on people to behave responsibly.

The new Omicron variant CH.1.1 has been detected in over 60 countries, presents a certain degree of immune evasion ability. However, it shows no significant increase in its ability to cause disease, posing only a minimal threat to China, an expert was quoted as saying by Jiankang Shibao (Health Times) on Tuesday.

A forest fire in Xing'an County, South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region is being put out with no casualties reported so far, the Global Times learned from the local government on Tuesday.

Chinese university's first polar icebreaker owned by Sun Yat-sen University – the third of its type in China after Xuelong and Xuelong-2, successfully conducted a sea trial in the ice-covered area in the Liaodong Bay in the Bohai Sea recently and verified the ship's abilities to complete low-temperature navigation, icebreaking, scientific research equipment on the ship, and research support in ice-covered areas.

Hong Kong hopes to fully resume cross-border travel with the Chinese mainland including scrapping nucleic acid testing, John Lee, Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government, said on Tuesday that the details will be soon unveiled to help the city completely return to normalcy.

A set of revised rules regulating the work of martyrs' burial will come into force on Wednesday.

The number of wild animals has been increasing in Beijing, and in this year the municipal authority will release the first list of important habitats for wildlife as part of efforts to create a more suitable ecological environment for wild species. There will be 13 habitats in the first list.

Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday that COVID-19 is still an international emergency, three years since the emergency was first announced. Nonetheless, although the pandemic remains at the WHO's highest alert level, it is likely at a transition point.

The COVID-19 epidemic in China has entered a period of low infection with new cases steadily declining, highlighting the effectiveness of prevention work after the country downgraded the management of COVID-19 from Class A to B, senior officials of the National Health Commission (NHC) said on Monday.

The Health Commission of Sichuan Province announced on Monday that it will end restrictions on marital status and the number of births used for the registration of newborns starting February 15, further simplifying the registration process.

Chinese mainland stocks mounted a remarkable rally on Monday, the first trading day of the year of the Rabbit, with a benchmark surging to a near bull market, despite a pullback later in the session, as market sentiments are evidently buoyed by a better-than-expected travel and spending spree during the Spring Festival holidays.

Hong Kong further adjusted its COVID-19 response by ending compulsory quarantine for infected people starting from Monday, and those who tested positive are not required to report. In the eyes of experts, this move reflects the general trend of normalizing epidemic management and shows that the conditions for the city to treat it as endemic are already mature.

A 6.1-magnitude-earthquake hit Shaya county of Aksu Prefecture in Northwest China's Xinjiang region at 7:49 am on Monday with its epicenter 50 kilometers deep, according to the China Earthquake Networks Center.

The COVID-19 epidemic did not rebound during the Spring Festival holidays, and the current round of the epidemic in China is nearing an end: China CDC weekly

After the US Treasury Department slapped a sanction on Changsha-based Spacety Co., Ltd, the company responded to the Global Times in an exclusive interview that all products and services of the company are intended for civilian and commercial use and do not involve any military use and the company is determined to protect its legitimate rights and benefits through legal means.

China announced on Sunday plans to resume issuing visas to Japanese tourists from that day, which followed a tourism boom during the just-ended Chinese Lunar New Year holidays, and it is regarded as a positive sign for travel and communications between Chinese and Japanese people.

China on Sunday announced it has approved two more domestically developed oral COVID-19 medicines, which are reportedly as effective as and much cheaper than Pfizer's Paxlovid.

The past Chinese New Year holidays were always destined to be extra special, not only because millions of Chinese families finally gathered together, but also China's homemade sci-fi blockbuster The Wandering Earth II hit record-high box-office receipts and touched the hearts of many moviegoers, resonating with ordinary people who looked back to an unforgettable three-year battle against the novel coronavirus.

China launched a new campaign to crack down on illegal border-crossings at the beginning of 2023 and vowed to spare no effort to maintain national political security and border stability, strengthen security prevention and control at ports, and strictly guard against infiltration and sabotage activities by hostile forces.

Police in Yanshan county, East China's Jiangxi Province, on Sunday confirmed that a body found hanging from a tree by local residents was Hu Xinyu, a 15-year-old boy who had been missing for more than three months. Local police noted that follow-up investigations are underway and relevant findings will continue to be released to the public in a timely manner.

A food vlogger from Nanchong city in Southwest China's Sichuan Province was fined 125,000 yuan ($18,431) in January for cooking and eating a protected shark, the local market watchdog announced on its official WeChat on Saturday.

Busy streets, crowded malls, and lively temple fairs. China's capital city saw its vibrancy come back during the Spring Festival holidays after emerging from a tough battle against COVID-19 in December.

Two hours. The entire time of my visit to the emergency room (ER) during the Spring Festival cost, much shorter than I expected. I rushed to ER on January 22, the first day of the Chinese New Year holidays. I had endured three days of chest tightness and shortness of breath, probably caused by Omicron infecting me in late December.

A group of trace fossils have been discovered for the first time in Northwest China's Shaanxi Province which proved to belong to horseshoe crabs and fish dating back to 200 million years ago, expanding the geographical and temporal distribution of horseshoe crab trace fossils discovered in China, an international team of paleontologists announced on Sunday.

Amid roaring machines and celebration ceremonies, factories in China's major industrial provinces resumed production on the first working day of the Year of the Rabbit on Saturday, a symbol of a good start for the country's economy in the first year after China further optimized its COVID response by downgrading the management of the virus.

China is poised to withstand the test of Spring Festival travel rush as most cities and regions have already passed the infection peaks, and adequate preparations and contingency plan put in place by authorities at all levels, hard work of medical workers and enhanced vaccinations have allowed residents enjoy a safe and warm Spring Festival without triggering any large-scale resurgence of infections.

The fatal Memphis police beating, which led to the death of 29-year-old Black man Tyre Nichols, has not only further unstitched the already loose fabric of US society, it weakens its internal cohesion and heralds a culmination of the racial conflicts of the last two years, as the 2024 presidential election approaches, with racial problems doomed to be hyped by rabble rouser politicians, said Chinese observers.

The Chinese mainland recorded 6,364 COVID-19 deaths in hospitals from January 20 to 26, according to the latest epidemic-related figures released by Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Chinese CDC) on Saturday. Compared to the previous week (January 13-19), when 12,658 COVID-19 deaths were reported, the death toll has dropped by nearly half.

The Chinese Olympic Committee (COC) said Friday it upholds the principle of political neutrality in sports, echoing the initiatives and decisions both the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) have made considering giving the green light to individual athletes from Russia and Belarus in international sport events.

China's immigration authorities have processed a total of 2.45 million trips crossing the border during the Chinese New Year travel peak, the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) revealed.

Railway stations and airports across China in the past few days have embraced the busiest period in almost three years as they were flooded with hugs, tears and joy. Highways were congested with cars full to the brim with hometown specialties, and after celebrating a warm and happy Spring Festival holiday with their loved ones, Chinese people are imbued with a refreshed spirit and wishes to usher in the Year of the Rabbit.

China's consumption posted a remarkable rebound during the 2023 Spring Festival, the most important holiday after the country optimized COVID-19 response in December last year, sending out an encouraging signal about the swift recovery of the world's second-largest economy, and that a vibrant Chinese economy will help lift the global economy out of the shadow of the epidemic.

A few days before the Spring Festival in 2020, I returned to my hometown - Yichang, a city about 320 kilometers away from Wuhan in Central China's Hubei Province, at that time there was no way to know that it would be the last Spring Festival, the most important traditional Chinese festival centered on the eternal theme of family reunion, I spent with my grandfather.

It was only when I took out my phone at a gate in Beijing Capital Airport, ready to scan health code but found no sign of the code, did I realize that days of COVID-19 restrictions were far behind us, despite the government had already downgraded the management of the COVID-19 earlier this month.

Over the past few days, the China Meteorological Observatory has issued consecutive cold wave warnings in various parts of China, with many places even experiencing record low temperatures. Nonetheless, there have not been reports of major casualties or economic losses in the areas hit by the cold wave. Many people rushed to social media platforms to document their experiences during this cold Chinese New Year holidays. On Monday, when a group of passengers flew from East China's Shanghai to Harbin, Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, they were surprised to find that the luggage compartment doors were frozen shut. The staff could only use a heater to try to thaw it out.

Many scenic spots across the country have embraced the tourism peak during the Chinese Spring Festival holidays, with some tourist attractions seeing tickets sold out, and the red tourism which refers to visiting historical sites with a modern revolutionary legacy, also saw a strong rebound.

The Muse-Ruili checkpoint - a China-Myanmar border crossing crucial to trade and that is also among the busiest in South Asia - fully reopened on Wednesday, after 1,030 days of closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic since late March 2020, the Global Times learnt from Ruili border checkpoint authorities on Thursday.

Eight have been confirmed dead, including six Chinese nationals, in the sinking accident of a Hong Kong-flagged cargo ship between South Korea and Japan, according to the Chinese consulate general in Fukuoka on Thursday.

The oral antiviral COVID-19 medicine LAGEVRIO (molnupiravir capsule) has been on sale in many places across China, with different medical insurance reimbursement ratios.

​The possibility is relatively low that XBB and BQ.1 strains that are circulating in other countries will become prevalent in China in the first half of 2023 or trigger a spike in infections, according to a senior Beijing-based respiratory expert.

Around December 22, 2022, the number of COVID-19 infections and visits to fever clinics across China reached their peak with new infections surpassing 7 million and visits to fever clinics reaching 2.87 million on a daily basis, and the number of deaths reached a daily peak of 4,273 on January 4, according to a latest report from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China's CDC).

For many local residents in Wuhan, Central China's Hubei Province, which reported the first COVID-19 outbreak in China three years ago, the Chinese New Year in 2020 was an unforgettable one as it coincided the moment when the city imposed a lockdown to cut off the coronavirus transmission. Three years later, after the country accumulated experiences in fighting the epidemic and continuously adjusted its anti-COVID measures, the metropolis on the banks of the Yangtze River is witnessing again the joyful and bustling holidays.

Unlike some Western media reports that predicted China's rural areas and small cities would see mass infections following the Spring Festival holidays, the Global Times learned from different localities that the numbers of positive cases have been largely declining during the holidays while some third- and fourth-tier cities have already passed peak infections.

A large number of festival foods, decorations and performing arts, identified as intangible cultural heritages, have also received growing attention during the Spring Festival.

China's Fendouzhe (Struggler) deep-sea manned submersible made history by completing 10 consecutive hours of operations at the deepest point of the Diamantina Trench in southeastern Indian Ocean and was successfully retrieved by the scientific research ship Tansuo (Exploration) -1 on Sunday.

Chinese women's curling team beated South Korea 6-4 on Saturday to clinch gold at the ongoing 2023 Winter World University Games, It was the first gold medal for the Chinese team at this Games and also the team's best performance at the event at the Games overseas.

China is estimated to see about 110 million railway trips during its Spring Festival travel rush, also known as Chunyun, in last 15 days ahead of the Chinese Lunar New Year, a time for epic family reunions in China. China is reinvigorated in during the world's largest human migration after the country optimized its COVID-19 response in December 2022.

With a huge passenger flow of about 5 billion trips expected during this year's Chinese Lunar New Year, COVID infection numbers in certain specific regions could rise, but the possibility of a large-scale epidemic rebound nationwide in the next two to three months is low, Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China's CDC), wrote on his social media account Saturday.

China's Tiangong space station launched the second Tiangong painting exhibition on Saturday, representing a special gift sent by the Shenzhou-15 mission astronauts at the Chinese space station to teenagers across the country during the Chinese New Year's Eve.

As China sets to resume pilot outbound group tours to a total of 20 countries starting from February 6, travel agencies have begun ramping up efforts preparing their first overseas trips, rolling out all relevant products and routes, meanwhile liaising with travel bureaus of each destination to discuss detailed arrangements.

As many Chinese Americans in the US have been inquiring when the Chinese government will resume multi-year multi-entry visas, the Chinese Embassy in the US said on Friday that those issued before March 26, 2020 are still suspended, as many of them are tourist visas, and China will adjust relevant measures in light of the development of the epidemic situation.

Twenty eight people have been confirmed dead as of 5:30 pm on Friday after a massive avalanche took place on Tuesday in the city of Nyingchi in Southwest China's Xizang (Tibet) Autonomous Region, according to local authorities.

Chinese travel agencies and online travel companies will resume pilot outbound group tours to a total of 20 countries starting from February 6, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism announced on Friday.

A total of 20 people have been confirmed dead and eight remain missing as of Friday noon after a deadly avalanche took place on Tuesday in the city of Nyingchi in Southwest China's Xizang (Tibet) Autonomous Region.

Chinese authorities are taking all efforts, including releasing reserves, to ensure stable supply and prices of essential commodities during the Spring Festival holidays amid rising demand.

Sinopharm's Omicron-specific mRNA vaccine approved for clinical trials

Relief supplies have been sent by Chinese NGOs to Afghanistan recently to help hundreds of children amid a harsh winter and shortage of supplies.

Last year, the Chinese cyberspace authorities continued to intensify and standardize online law enforcement based on the principle of combining punishment with education, during which 8,608 websites and platforms were investigated, with 6,767 receiving warnings and 420 apps being shut down.

The Spring Festival of 2023 is destined to be unique, as it will be a year of coming back, of remembrance and letting go, of a new start to a more vibrant future after the country has optimized its COVID-19 responses, en route to walking out of the shadow of COVID-19 pandemic.

Thailand's Department of Medical Sciences on January 6 confirmed the first case in Thailand of XAY.2, a Delta-Omicron recombinant variant, according to local media reports. The news has drawn widespread attention, with many worrying about whether this could lead to a further escalation of COVID-19 cases and how it might affect the epidemic situation in China.

China on Thursday released a white paper on its green development in the new era, elaborating on how the country has stayed firmly committed to green development, proactively participated in global climate governance and spearheaded international cooperation.

With millions of Chinese people making journeys back to their hometowns in recent days, most Chinese megacities have already passed the peak of their COVID waves, some public health experts said. They also believed that the Spring Festival travel rush won't trigger a large-scale epidemic resurgence, but small-scale outbreaks in some areas, especially in remote rural areas, are highly likely as the most important holiday for Chinese people gets underway.

Chinese health authorities reiterated the importance of anti-epidemic work in rural areas at a press conference on Thursday as the country is preparing to celebrate the 2023 Chinese New Year, amid concerns about outbreaks in these places with large numbers of people returning from cities.