BEIJING — China has disposed of 159,000 metric tons of medical waste since late January amid the fight against the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), according to the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE).

China's medical waste disposal capacity has reached 6,058.8 tons per day, up from 4,902.8 tons each day before the epidemic outbreak, MEE said in a statement.

The disposal capacity of Hubei province, the epicenter of the outbreak, rose from 180 tons per day before the outbreak to 667.4 tons, showed the MEE data.

Environmental authorities monitored the country's 17,949 drinking water sources and did not find any impact from the epidemic on the quality of the sources, it said.

The MEE also logged improvement in air quality for 337 cities it has monitored, with the share of good air quality days at 85.7 percent from January 20 to March 14, up 10.1 percentage points year-on-year.