China is witnessing a massive surge in COVID cases which could be a weight for the open following Friday's bearish close on Wall Street and a higher US inflation reading that is likely to weigh on risky assets.

The weekend news that fresh COVID curbs were imposed in Beijing could spark fresh anxiety, despite China's infection rate being low by global standards. The nation maintains a zero-COVID policy even as other countries try to live with the virus.

In total, mainland China reported 210 new coronavirus cases for Friday, of which 79 were symptomatic and 131 were asymptomatic, the National Health Commission said.

That was up from 151 new cases a day earlier, 45 of them symptomatic and 106 asymptomatic.

As of Friday, mainland China had confirmed 224,659 cases with symptoms.

"The recent outbreak … is strongly explosive in nature and widespread in scope," Xu Hejian, A spokesperson of the Beijing municipal government said in a news briefing.