China has deployed a fleet of 60 drones in Guangzhou (Getty)

China has deployed a fleet of 60 drones in Guangzhou to keep people indoors amid a flare-up of Covid-19 infections.

The country had largely stamped out cases of local coronavirus transmission but decided to use the unmanned aerial vehicles when the more infectious Delta variant was discovered.

In total, six new cases of the strain first detected in India were reported in Guangzhou in 24 hours, raising the number in the outbreak to more than 100.