TOP HEADLINES

- Turkey has confirmed 15 cases of the new COVID-19 variant in those arriving from the UK. The country has reported 202 new deaths and 11,180 more positive cases in the last 24 hours, according to its health ministry.

- Switzerland's new president Guy Parmelin admitted the country's errors in the management of the pandemic, acknowledging that the authorities "underestimated the situation." 

- Batches of the newly approved Oxford University and AstraZeneca vaccine have started arriving at hospitals in the UK. About 530,000 doses of the vaccine will be rolled out from January 4. The country recorded its highest daily case total yesterday with 57,725 confirmed cases.

- Russia has vaccinated more than 800,000 people and more than 1.5 million doses have been dispatched. The health ministry is keeping a database of those who have had the Sputnik V vaccine.

- Italy is delaying opening its ski resorts until January 18, after regional authorities asked for more time to meet coronavirus rules. Authorities in the country's northern and central regions had alerted the government that a planned January 7 opening date was not feasible. 

- The European Union is ready to help drug companies boost vaccine production to clear a "bottleneck" in distribution, its top health official said.

- Gibraltar has imposed a second lockdown to slow the rise in the number of COVID-19 cases. The new measures began on Saturday night and will stay in place for 14 days.

- Bavarian governor Markus Soeder is calling for Germany's lockdown to be extended until the end of January and says there should be no rushed reopening of schools. The current lockdown was imposed on December 16 and is scheduled to end on January 10.

- Norway, which has one of the lowest infection rates in Europe, has introduced mandatory COVID-19 tests upon arrival into the country, after finding five cases of the new variant that first emerged in the UK.

- More than 1,200 people have been booked for breaking coronavirus restrictions after police ended an illegal New Year's rave in northwestern France after more than two days.

- Saudi Arabia is reopening its borders and resuming international flights after a two-week suspension to stem the spread of the new variant. But foreigners returning from Britain, South Africa or any other country where the new variant is spreading must spend 14 days in another country and show a negative test, before entering Saudi Arabia.

- India's drug regulator has approved the emergency use of two COVID-19 vaccines developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University and by local pharmaceutical firm Bharat Biotech.

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ACROSS EUROPE

Natalie Carney in Germany

A total of 188,553 people have been vaccinated against COVID-19 in Germany, according to the Robert Koch Institute. 

However, there are concerns about supply, which has led to the temporary shutdown of some vaccination centres. The next EU delivery of the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine is planned for January 8.

The European Medicines agency is expected to approve the U.S. biotech company Moderna's vaccine on January 6. Germany is also pushing for the European approval of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, which will help ease supply concerns.

The vaccination campaign is also fueling a debate in Germany over whether vaccinated people should be given special privileges under lockdown restrictions, with the premier of North Rhine-Westphalia, the country's most populous state, being the latest to add his voice against such a policy.

Croatia

The Croatian health authorities are giving COVID-19 vaccines to elderly people who were hit by a powerful earthquake. 

The 6.2-magnitude quake killed seven people and caused major damage in one of the poorest areas of the country. Residents have been clearing the rubble from their badly damaged houses, four days after the earthquake. Hundreds of them are unable to return to their homes. 

About 20 countries have sent aid to Croatia. More than 370 earthquakes have been recorded since December 28 in the Petrinja region, about 50 kilometers from Zagreb, according to a local seismological institute.

United Kingdom

The UK's National Health Service's bosses are set to cancel urgent surgery across London hospitals, which could lead to cancer patients waiting months for potentially lifesaving surgeries.

The decision is being considered as the capital's hospitals continue to be overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients requiring critical care.

The operations likely to be canceled, known as "priority two" procedures, mainly involve cases where specialists have judged that the an operation is needed to be done within four weeks as any delay could allow the tumour to grow, the cancerous cells to spread or both, thus impacting the patient's chances of survival.

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