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Millions of people were confined to their homes in China on Monday as the country’s most serious surge of coronavirus infections in months spread to two more areas.

The nation where the disease first emerged has rushed to prevent the highly transmissible strain from taking root by putting more than one million people under lockdown and reinstituting mass testing campaigns.

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The outbreak spanned Beijing, Chongqing and five provinces as of Saturday as more than 200 cases have been linked to a Delta cluster in Nanjing city where nine cleaners at an international airport tested positive .

At least 200 cases have been linked to a Delta cluster reported at an international airport in Nanjing city.

China on Monday reported 55 new locally transmitted coronavirus cases and the country tried to contain its largest coronavirus outbreak in months with mass testing and travel curbs.

Local governments in major cities including Beijing have now tested millions of residents, while cordoning off residential compounds and placing close contacts under quarantine.

As an outbreak of the fast-spreading Delta variant reached over 20 cities and more than a dozen provinces, the central city of Zhuzhou in Hunan province ordered over 1.2 million residents on Monday to stay home under strict lockdown for the next three days as it rolls out a citywide testing and vaccination campaign, according to an official statement.

Globally, COVID-19 infections are once again on the upswing, with the World Health Organization announcing an 80 per cent average increase over the past four weeks in five of the health agency's six regions, a jump largely fuelled by the Delta variant.