TOP HEADLINES

• Adults wanting to the leave the Austrian province of Tyrol must provide evidence of a negative COVID-19 test taken within the previous 48 hours, after an outbreak of the so-called South African coronavirus variant, the government has said. The rule kicks in from Friday.

• Spain has extended a ban on arrivals by air from the UK, Brazil and South Africa until March 2 over the new virus variants first detected in those nations. Spanish officials predict the variant discovered in the UK could become the dominant one by March.

• Germany is planning to spend about $10.8 billion this year to help procure up to 635.1 million COVID-19 vaccination shots for its population and other EU member states.

• Europe's oldest person, French nun Sister Andre, has survived COVID-19 and will celebrate her 117th birthday this week, her caregivers have said. She tested positive in her retirement home in Toulon on January 16 and had isolated from other residents, but displayed no symptoms.

• The number of new COVID-19 cases in Germany has fallen to its lowest for three months. According to the Robert Koch Institute, the average for the previous seven days was below 75 new cases per 100,000 people, down from a peak of nearly 200 just before Christmas. The government target is to reduce that number to 50.

• Louis Aliot, the mayor of Perpignan and deputy leader of the right-wing National Rally, has authorized the reopening of four museums, in defiance of the French government's nationwide coronavirus restrictions.

• Almost nine in 10 (89 percent) of Britons say they would take the vaccine if it were available to them, according to a new Ipsos-World Economic Forum global survey in 15 countries. The figure stands at 80 percent in Italy and Spain.

• The World Health Organization has insisted the Oxford University-AstraZeneca vaccine remains a vital tool in fighting COVID-19, after South Africa delayed the start of its inoculation program over concerns about the jab's efficacy against the virus variant first discovered in the country.

• Andrew Pollard, director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, has told the BBC that all current coronavirus vaccines "are still preventing severe disease and death." 

• Spain is likely to top 3 million COVID-19 cases on Tuesday. The country, which received its first AstraZeneca jabs over the weekend, has recorded 2,941,990 total infections since the start of the pandemic.

• All travelers entering the UK will have to take coronavirus tests on days two and eight of their 10-day quarantine. The Department of Health says the move will provide a "further level of protection," enabling authorities to track new cases more effectively.

• Facebook has banned misinformation about all vaccines following years of harmful, unfounded health claims proliferating on its platform. The social media network will now remove posts with false claims about all vaccines.

• The UK government will begin surge testing in areas near Manchester after the variant first detected in southeast England was identified. Some 10,000 extra doorstep tests will be handed out to over-16s who live, work or study across six postcode areas targeted by officials.

• European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has called on EU member states to donate some of their coronavirus jabs to Ukraine, as it prepares to launch its vaccination campaign.

• Some 1.92 million people had received a first injection of the COVID-19 vaccine since the start of the vaccination campaign in France, according to the country's health ministry, while 296,265 second injections had been administered to date.

• The Dutch government will extend a night-time curfew intended to slow the spread of coronavirus to March 3, the country's justice minister has said. The curfew, the first in the Netherlands since World War II, sparked several days of riots from anti-lockdown protesters when it was initially introduced on January 23.

ACROSS EUROPE

Mia Alberti in Budapest

The World Health Organization (WHO) will hold a meeting of the COVAX Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator Facilitation Council on Tuesday. The organization is set to "discuss and provide advice to accelerate fair and equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines" and "discuss how to translate political commitments into financing" the ACT.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus will co-host the meeting in which Pierre Delsaux, the European Commission's Deputy Director-General for Health and Food Safety, will also participate.

The meeting comes as the EU is struggling with vaccine deliveries across the bloc and countries such as Hungary are acquiring jabs outside the centralized procurement plan.

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Ross Cullen in Paris

France's health secretary says the COVID-19 situation in France is "stable and high." Olivier Veran told breakfast media that "the variants are spreading in our country but we have backed up the national curfew with extra measures."

He said "it is possible and desirable that we may never need to go back into another full lockdown" and added that "now is not the time to change our vaccination strategy."

Veran also said everyone aged over 75 should book a vaccination appointment but admitted that they may be put on a waiting list. The minister, who had his first coronavirus vaccine on Monday, defended the slow pace of the French vaccination strategy. He said the UK, for example, had gone against some scientific advice and had pressed ahead with first doses more than following up with second doses.

One in seven cases in France is a variant of COVID-19, such as those first identified in the UK, Brazil and South Africa. One school has been closed for three weeks in the region to the north of Paris after two cases were confirmed of the variant first identified in South Africa.

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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.