China has reported a total of 2,016 confirmed local cases of COVID-19 in the first month of 2021, the highest monthly increase since March last year, Mi Feng, spokesperson for the National Health Commission (NHC) said at a press conference on Sunday.

Mi said the overall situation is still controllable and numbers of both confirmed and asymptomatic cases in China started to decline late this week. 

Mi also voiced stern caution that local authorities across China should not adopt a blunt and one-size-fits-all approach to the "stay-put" policy, which encourages people to spend the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday where they work in a call to help reduce the risk of viral infections. 

Read more:

China says Lunar New Year holiday travel curbs not mandatory

Meanwhile, China is also ramping up vaccination efforts and as of now, over 24 million shots of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered across the country, Xu Wenbo, an official from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention told reporters at the press conference.