TOP HEADLINES

·  The EU has begun rolling out vaccines in a cross-border program on an unprecedented scale with the goal of inoculating all adults during 2021 with over two billion vaccine doses from a range of suppliers.

·  Three health workers at a hospital in Rome were the first to receive the vaccine in Italy, ten months after the first Italian tested positive for coronavirus. Around 9,750 doses have already arrived in the country and another 470,000 are expected to arrive from next week, the health ministry has said.

·  Pensioners in Nicosia, Larnaca and Limassol were the first to receive the new jab in Cyprus which arrived by air on Saturday. So far Cyprus has 19,391 cases of COVID-19 and 111 deaths.

· Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis was the first person to have the new injection before hospitals in Prague and Brno began to distribute the 9,750 doses the country has received so far. Emilie Repikova, 95, a World War Two veteran, was also one of the first to be vaccinated, shortly after Babis.

· The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 13,755 to 1,640,858, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases has shown. The reported death toll rose by 356 to 29,778.

· Spain's coalition government is deeply split over a proposal to shorten the working week to four days to fight high unemployment sparked by the coronavirus pandemic.

· France is not ruling out a third nationwide lockdown if virus cases continue to rise. "We will never exclude measures that are necessary to protect the public," Health Minister Olivier Veran told Journal de Dimanche.

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ACROSS EUROPE

Iolo ap Dafydd in London

A third of England's population are living under the strictest COVID-19 regulations and may do so for several weeks or even longer. Most of Scotland and Northern Ireland are also under lockdown, and tough measures have been reimposed in Wales after relaxing rules just for Christmas Day.

All non-essential shops have closed, and traditional Boxing Day sales to entice shoppers had been canceled in many cities. In Manchester, Birmingham and Newcastle though, people were queueing outside shops from 4 a.m. Later, large crowds were seen, defying Prime Minister Boris Johnson's request a few days ago, to think carefully before descending on retail centers to hunt for bargains.

People were asked to behave as if they had the virus. There was a 60 percent drop in footfall across the UK, while in central London, where only essential shopping is allowed, there was a 90 percent drop in one of the quietest Boxing days on record. Vaccinating in the UK is expected to be accelerated as the official coronavirus death toll is now 70,405.

Trent Murray in Berlin

It's a landmark day for Germany in its fight against COVID-19, with the first vaccinations now being rolled out across the country. The first German citizen to receive the jab was 101-year-old Edith Kwoizalla, who actually got the vaccine ahead of schedule on Saturday evening. 

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine will now continue to be distributed across Germany, with nursing home residents and their carers first in line. As more supplies become available, vaccination centers have been set up in towns and cities, capable of administering the jabs to tens of thousands of people a day.  Germany's Health Minister, Jens Spahn, said: "This vaccine is the key for defeating the pandemic. It's the key for us getting back our lives." 

Spain

A 96-year-old living in a care home in central Spain became the first person in the country to be vaccinated against COVID-19 on Sunday.

A smiling Araceli Rosario Hidalgo Sanchez said afterwards she felt "nothing" from the jab.

Shown live on national television, the pensioner, living in the Los Olmos retirement home in Guadalajara, then got up slowly after pulling on her black jacket and walked off using a frame for support.

Carer Monica Tapias followed as the second Spaniard to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

The Los Olmos home was picked to kick off the country's inoculation campaign because it sits near a Pfizer storage depot, where vaccines were delivered from Belgium on Saturday ahead of the nationwide distribution.

Sweden

The new variant of coronavirus linked to a rapid rise in infections in the UK has been detected in Sweden after a traveler from Britain became ill and tested positive, the Swedish Health Agency has said.

Health Agency official Sara Byfors told a news conference the patient had been isolating and that no further positive cases had been detected so far.

The unidentified traveler was staying in Sormland, south of Stockholm, according to Signe Makitalo, a regional infection control doctor. The new variant is thought to be more transmissible than others currently circulating.

"The person that tested positive with the virus traveled to Sormland from Great Britain for a visit over Christmas," Makitalo said, adding that the risk of further contagion from the case was considered extremely limited.

FROM OUR GLOBAL COLLEAGUES

CGTN China: Chinese mainland reports 22 new COVID-19 cases

CGTN America: U.S. medical workers frustrated over hospitals' vaccine rollout system

CGTN Africa: Africa's COVID-19 caseload hits 2,623,086: Africa CDC

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CGTN Europe has been providing in-depth coverage of the novel coronavirus story as it has unfolded. Here you can read the essential information about the crisis.