Dubai on Monday ordered bars to close until the end of the month to suppress a spike in coronavirus cases, after tourists flocked to the emirate over the holiday period.

The World Health Organization on Monday blasted critics of its investigation into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic and challenged those claiming to know better to come forward with the smoking gun.

A WHO investigative team is in Wuhan, China -- where the first cases were discovered in December 2019 -- trying to piece together how the virus jumped from animals to humans before going on to kill more than two million people.

The Palestinians are to receive a first batch of 50,000 coronavirus vaccines by mid-February, when they will launch inoculations in the West Bank and Gaza, their prime minister said Monday

AstraZeneca will increase its coronavirus vaccine deliveries to the EU by 30 percent, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said Sunday as the bloc sought to claw back time lost rolling out the jabs.

Kazakhstan began its coronavirus vaccination campaign Monday with top health officials receiving Russia's Sputnik V vaccine.

Key transport hub Dubai on Sunday announced an initiative to accelerate the delivery of coronavirus vaccines, particularly to developing nations, after the WHO warned against abandoning the world's poor.

Around 5,000 people defied a ban to march Sunday in Vienna in protest against a curfew and lockdown aimed at curbing the spread of Covid-19.

Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews defied Israel's coronavirus restrictions to attend a rabbi's funeral on Sunday, prompting Defense Minister Benny Gantz to demand the community's repeated breaking of lockdown rules must end.

French President Emmanuel Macron has gambled by not imposing a third national lockdown to contain Covid-19 -- against expectations and the advice of senior scientific advisers.

WHO experts on Sunday visited the market in central China linked to the first known Covid-19 cluster, seeking clues about the beginning of the pandemic as a number of nations further tightened restrictions to stop the coronavirus.