TOP HEADLINES

• Poland and Ukraine have registered record daily case rises of 34,151 and 16,669 respectively. 

• Hungary's daily deaths hit a new high of 272. Read more in Across Europe, below

• Sweden registered its highest jump in cases this year, with 7,706 new infections, 

• Cases in Germany and the Netherlands are rising at their fastest pace since early January, with 22,657 and almost 8,000 new cases respectively. 

• France has locked down three more regions, including that around the city of Lyon, after the national number of COVID-19 sufferers in intensive care units reached 4,709, a new 2021 high. 

• Germany plans to enforce strict quarantine restrictions on travelers from France, where new cases of the coronavirus are increasing, two government sources said on Thursday.

• Portugal has extended its state of emergency for 15 days as it gradually eases strict lockdown measures imposed in mid-January to tackle what was then the world's worst coronavirus surge.

• Poland will limit church service attendance and close kindergartens and hair salons in response to what Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki called the "most difficult moment of the pandemic."

• Gibraltar is to ease mask rules and lift a curfew after vaccinating most adults among the 33,000 population, with no new infections reported on Wednesday.

• Europe's drugs regulator, the European Medicines Agency, will further study reported cases of blood clots linked to the Oxford University-AstraZeneca vaccine. Iceland will resume using the jab, Denmark has extended its pause for three weeks and Sweden will use it for those aged 65 or over.

• Austria's Chancellor Sebastian Kurz warned on Thursday that the European Union would be greatly harmed if vaccines were not distributed more equitably between member states. 

• Novavax is delaying signing a contract to supply its COVID-19 vaccine to the European Union, said an EU official involved in the talks, as the U.S. biotech company warned it was struggling to source some raw materials.

• Italy will fail to meet an EU target of vaccinating 80 percent of citizens aged 80 and over by the end of March, a leading health institute warned on Thursday, questioning the vaccine policies of many local health authorities. 

• Albania has received 192,000 doses of the Chinese Sinovac jab, the first batch of 1 million secured through a deal agreed in Turkey, local media reported.

• Serbia's Torlak Institute will produce the Sputnik V vaccine after reaching an agreement with Russia's RDIF sovereign wealth fund, while Belarus's health ministry said the country had started mass producing the vaccine and planned to make up to 500,000 doses of the shot per month.

• Russia's Chumakov Center has started phase three trials of the CoviVac jab, the Interfax news agency cited a government minister as saying on Thursday. Besides Sputnik V, Russian authorities have also given emergency approval to the EpiVacCorona and CoviVac shots. 

• British-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca, which has submitted a request to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) for authorization of its Dutch vaccine plant, revised down by three percentage points the effectiveness of its COVID-19 vaccine after U.S. authorities raised concerns over outdated results. 

• Vienna and two other provinces in eastern Austria will go back into lockdown for several days over the Easter holidays in a bid to ease the growing strain on intensive care wards, the country's health minister said on Wednesday. 

• Finland's government has proposed locking down five cities, including capital Helsinki, in what would be the country's first such restrictions. Earlier this month, the government closed restaurants and secondary schools throughout the country.

• Hungary's planned reopening of schools and kindergartens on April 7 now appears "optimistic," said Zoltan Maruzsa, a state secretary in charge of education, as the country's surgeon general said hospitals are under "extraordinary" pressure. Read more in Across Europe, below.

ACROSS EUROPE

Andrew Wilson in the UK

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has suggested the UK government is considering "vaccine certificates" for pub-goers as lockdown restrictions ease in April, with an alternative option of testing on entry for the non-vaccinated.

Conservative backbenchers are already protesting against the idea of "papers for the pub," claiming it would lead to discrimination, a two-tier hospitality system and unacceptable pressure on young bar staff trying to police the system.

The NHS is advising any remaining unvaccinated over-50s to book in for a COVID-19 vaccination before an anticipated slowdown in supply on Monday. From next week, the focus will be on delivering boosters to those who have already had the first jab until supplies pick up again.

Penelope Liersch in Budapest

Hungary has passed another grim milestone with a new record number of daily COVID-19 deaths. Thursday's data added another 272 people to the toll, 20 more than the previous record reached on Tuesday. The total number of deaths due to COVID-19 is now 19,224, while more than 1.7 million people have had their first dose of vaccine.  

The news comes as a state secretary in charge of education flagged that schools returning in early April is "optimistic." School and nursery students were due to be back in the classroom on April 7 but this is likely to be delayed due to the ongoing crisis. Tomorrow, the government is expected to announce restrictions for the Easter period.

READ MORE

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Ross Cullen in Paris

"The coming weeks are going to be very difficult," France's health secretary told members of parliament on Wednesday. But Olivier Veran said "we are at a turning point," due to the vaccination campaign, which is now accelerating in France. More than 6 million people have now had one jab; 2.5m have had both COVID-19 vaccine doses. 

The head of the Paris capital region is proposing bringing forward the start date for the school spring holidays by two weeks. Valerie Pecresse suggests vacations could start on April 2 to try to act as a brake on the spread of the third wave. But Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo says the "answer is to vaccinate teachers and all those who work with children." 

The interior minister has called on police to hand out fines "strictly, throughout the country" to people who are gathering in groups of more than six.

Ryan Thompson in Frankfurt 

In an unusual move, Germany's federal government is backtracking on its decision to implement a coronavirus shutdown during the Easter holidays. Chancellor Angela Merkel summoned state premiers to a last-minute video call on Wednesday morning to tell them the news. 

The U-turn by Berlin comes after 24 hours of criticism, in which some complained the extended shutdown would compound lockdown fatigue and others felt it was too little to curb rising COVID-19 infections. Very few agreed the measures were acceptable.

It's not immediately clear if state leaders will meet again soon to propose further revisions.

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