Australia's third-largest city was headed into another lockdown Friday and nationwide restrictions on international arrivals were being tightened, after a cleaner at a quarantine hotel contracted the highly infectious UK strain of Covid-19.

Countries in Asia stepped up their fight against the coronavirus on Thursday to suppress a contagion they had previously tamed, as warnings grew in Europe over a new fast-spreading variant.

Christians flocked to churches in Greece to celebrate the Epiphany on Wednesday, after the Orthodox Church rejected government coronavirus restrictions.

Amnesty International on Wednesday called on Israel to provide coronavirus vaccine doses to Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, saying the Jewish state was obligated to do so under international law.

An expert mission to China to probe the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic was in disarray Wednesday after Beijing denied entry to the World Health Organization team at the last minute despite months of painstaking negotiations.

The European Union could authorize a second coronavirus vaccine "in the coming hours", European Council chief Charles Michel said Tuesday, adding that leaders would hold a virtual summit on the health crisis later this month.

National capitals have been pressuring the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to issue its green light for the shot from U.S.-based Moderna as other advanced nations like Britain, the U.S. and Israel press ahead.

The WHO's vaccine advisory group said Tuesday that the second Pfizer-BioNTech anti-Covid-19 vaccine dose could, in exceptional circumstances, be administered a few weeks beyond the recommended 21-28 days.

Members of an international expert team set off for China to investigate the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic, but Beijing has yet to grant them entry, the WHO chief said Tuesday.

"Today, we learned that Chinese officials have not yet finalized the necessary permissions for the team's arrivals in China," Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters.

Schools and colleges across Britain closed on Tuesday ahead of a national lockdown as the country battled to control surging coronavirus cases that are threatening to overwhelm its healthcare system.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and state leaders are expected Tuesday to extend a shutdown in Europe's top economy as coronavirus deaths continue to mount despite tough restrictions in the run-up to the holidays.