France recorded 10,561 new Covid-19 cases in the past 24 hours, which is a new daily record, health authorities said. The number topped 10,000 for the first time. The latest daily count, surpassing the previous record of 9,843 new infections reported on Thursday, highlights a resurgence of the disease in France.

The French government will discuss on Friday whether to impose new, local lockdowns to try to tackle rising Covid-19 while keeping economic and social activities going, news wires reported. President Emmanuel Macron have said he hoped any new measures would not be too restrictive.

The development of a promising Covid-19 vaccine has been put on hold due to an adverse reaction in a trial participant. A spokesman for AstraZeneca, the company working with a team from Oxford University, told the Guardian the trial has been stopped to review the “potentially unexplained illness” in one of the participants.

The Commission today adopted a proposal for a Council Recommendation to ensure that any measures taken by Member States that restrict free movement due to the coronavirus pandemic are coordinated and clearly communicated at the EU level, the EU press service reported.

More than one in four of Finland's 5.5 million people have downloaded the country's contact tracing smartphone app since it was launched on Monday, the public health authority said. The Finnish version, based on Bluetooth technology, does not reveal anyone’s identity to users or authorities, but helps trace unknown contacts that have remained long enough near a person who later tests positive for Covid-19.

Germany will not need another national lockdown over the winter to keep the coronavirus under control despite rising infections, Health Minister Jens Spahn said on Wednesday. While in March it had been the right thing to do to protect the weakest, it would not be needed again, he said. “We will certainly not need to do this nationwide,” Spahn said, adding that regional authorities could handle outbreaks.

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases globally has topped 25 million. That’s according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Friday the coronavirus pandemic was likely to worsen in coming months, and that her government would respond by prioritising the welfare of society as a whole and the economy, news wires reported.

Trade Commissioner Phil Hogan resign late on Wednesday over alleged breaches of Covid-19 guidelines during a trip to his native Ireland, news wires reported. Hogan attended a golf dinner last week that outraged the Irish public and led to the resignation of an Irish minister.

France will not let its guard down against a still-virulent coronavirus but life must return to some kind of normality, the prime minister said on Wednesday, as a senior adviser to the government warned of a second wave in November.