In Photos: Amid biggest COVID-19 outbreak, China imposes stay-at-home orders on millions of more people in northeast

China has imposed stay-at-home orders on millions of more people in the country's northeast, as the nation is facing its worst COVID-19 surge since the pandemic first emerged in the city of Wuhan, Al Jazeera reported.

The country has largely kept the virus at bay since it controlled its initial outbreak in 2020 using targeted lockdowns, mass testing and travel restrictions.

China on Saturday reported its first deaths from the virus in more than a year.

The two deaths were in the northeastern province of Jilin, according to China's national health commission. This week, Jilin banned its 24 million residents from leaving the province or travelling between cities because of the surging case numbers there, according to Al Jazeera.

Beijing is facing mounting pressure to guard against imported infections amid a recent surge in cases throughout the country.

"On the whole, the local epidemic situation in China is still in the development stage, and many provinces and regions are fighting against the Omicron epidemic in multiple cities at the same time," a Chinese official was quoted as saying by state media outlet Global Times.

The official added that China's epidemic prevention and control situation "remains grim and complex." "Epidemic prevention and control is a priority for the country," Mi Feng, a spokesperson from the National Health Commission (NHC), said.

Further, Mi urged that the public and the relevant departments resist a "relax, rest, wait and see," attitude and not show fatigue in the face of the epidemic battle, no fluking, slacking, noting persistence is victory.

Since the beginning of this year, the epidemic situation in China's neighbouring countries and regions has been increasingly volatile. Since March this year, the average number of daily imported cases in China has exceeded 200.