People traveling from non-EU countries to France will no longer be allowed enter by presenting a negative result from a quick COVID-19 test, but cross-Channel truck drivers will be exempt, the French government announced on Friday.

Almost a million people in Italy have received the vaccine against Covid-19, the latest figures published by the Health Ministry show. Up until 15 January, a total of 972,099 vaccinations are reported as having been administered to people in Italy, or 69% of the doses that had been delivered by that date.

While most of Europe kicked off 2021 with earlier curfews or stay-at-home orders, authorities in Spain insist the new coronavirus variant causing havoc elsewhere is not to blame for a sharp resurgence of cases and that the country can avoid a full lockdown even as its hospitals fill up, AP reported.

Britain will ban arrivals from South American countries and Portugal because of concerns over a new Brazilian variant of the coronavirus, transport minister Grant Shapps said. PM Boris Johnson expressed concern about the Brazilian strain on Wednesday and Britain is already trying to contain a UK variant behind a surge in cases at the end of last year.

The Covid-19 pandemic is increasing economic imbalances in the Eurozone, the Commission will tell the EU's finance ministers on Monday when they gather for their monthly talks, news wires reported. In a note that is to form the basis of their discussions, the Commission said the pandemic impact was especially visible in countries that were already vulnerable before the outbreak because of high debts, according to Reuters.

Germany on Friday passed two million coronavirus cases as a World Health Organization emergency committee readied to issue advice on stemming the spread of new, more contagious strains of the disease, AFP reported.

Countries across Europe have imposed a patchwork of curfews and lockdowns of varying strictness to combat the spread of the coronavirus, AP reported. Here, at a glance, are the measures in place in the EU Member States and some neighbouring nations.

A team of experts from the World Health Organization arrived in Wuhan on Thursday to start a highly politicised probe into the origins of the coronavirus, as China announced first death from Covid-19 in eight months, news wires reported.

Denmark would extend its lockdown measures in an effort to combat the coronavirus, PM Mette Frederiksen said. “I believe that an extension of the restrictions is clearly necessary. Not least to ensure that the British mutation does not spread,” he pointed out cited by Reuters.

Residents of a Dutch town filed into a sports hall Wednesday to take part in the country’s first mass coronavirus testing program, which aims to find out more about the spread of a new more transmissible coronavirus variant.