China has issued a lengthy rebuttal of what it said were 24 "preposterous allegations" by some leading US politicians over its handling of the new coronavirus outbreak.

The Chinese foreign ministry has dedicated most of its press briefings over the past week to rejecting accusations by US politicians, especially Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, that China had withheld information about the new coronavirus and that it had originated in a laboratory in the city of Wuhan.

A 30-page, 11,000-word article posted on the ministry website on Saturday night repeated and expanded on the refutations made during the press briefings, and began by invoking Abraham Lincoln, the 19th century US. president.

"As Lincoln said, you can fool some of the people all the time and fool all the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time," it said in the prologue.

The article also cited media reports that said Americans had been infected with the virus before the first case was confirmed in Wuhan. There is no evidence to suggest that is the case. However, the article said that all evidence shows the virus is not man-made.

The article also provided a timeline of how China had provided information to the international community in a "timely", "open and transparent" manner to rebuke US suggestions that it had been slow to sound the alarm.

Yesterday, China's National Health Commission reported 14 new confirmed coronavirus cases on May 9, the highest number since April 28, including the first for more than a month in the city of Wuhan where the outbreak was first detected late last year. The new Wuhan case, the first reported in the epicentre of China's outbreak since April 3, was previously asymptomatic, according to the health commission.