| | | | | Lebanon has detected its first case of the new variant of the coronavirus, which has been spreading rapidly in parts of Britain, on a flight arriving from London, it said on Friday. | | |
| | | Pope Francis called in his Christmas message on Friday for nations to share Covid-19 vaccines, saying walls of nationalism could not be built to stop a pandemic that knows no borders. | | |
| | | Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga urged the nation on Friday to spend a quiet New Year period without the usual social gatherings to prevent the spread of COVID-19, which has been breaking infection records almost on a daily basis. | | |
| | | Indonesia recorded its biggest daily rise in COVID-19 deaths on Friday with 258 fatalities, taking the total to 20,847, data by the country's health ministry showed. | | |
| | | Russia on Friday reported 29,018 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, including 7,315 in Moscow, taking the national total to 2,992,706 since the pandemic began. | | |
| | | The U.S. government will require all airline passengers arriving from the United Kingdom to test negative for COVID-19 within 72 hours of departure starting Monday amid concerns about a new coronavirus variant that may be more transmissible. | | |
| | | South Korea plans to discuss whether it needs to further tighten distancing rules this weekend as the current curbs failed to reverse a resurgence in outbreaks, with the daily coronavirus count hitting another high on Friday, officials said. | | |
| | | Thailand confirmed 81 new coronavirus infections on Friday, of which nine were imported from abroad, the public health ministry said. | | |
| | | The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 25,533 to 1,612,648, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Friday. | | |
| | | Hong Kong extended a compulsory quarantine by an extra seven days to 21 days for all visitors outside China, effective Friday, in stepped-up efforts to prevent a new variant of the novel coronavirus from spreading. | | |
| | | Australia's New South Wales state has increased COVID-19 testing to rein in a resurgence of coronavirus infections in Sydney, with other states and territories taking similar steps on concerns the outbreak might have spread. | | |
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