Worldwide spread of the coronavirus

China’s Sinovac Biotech defended the safety and efficacy of its experimental coronavirus vaccine after disappointing data from Brazil. Meanwhile, Indonesia launched one of the world’s biggest COVID-19 vaccination drives, aiming to inoculate 181.5 million people, using the vaccine made by Sinovac.

Germany will not be able to lift all curbs at the beginning of February, health minister said, stressing the need to further reduce contacts to fend off a more virulent variant of the virus.

Italy’s health minister said the government would extend the country’s COVID-19 state of emergency to the end of April.

British airline easyJet said the National Health Service (NHS) would train hundreds of its cabin crew to administer COVID-19 vaccines under a fast-track scheme designed to help boost the country’s vaccination efforts.

China posted its biggest daily increase in cases in more than five months and stepped up containment measures that have seen four cities put under lockdown.

More than 6,000 people in Singapore have received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, with numbers expected to rise substantially in the coming weeks as the city-state ramps up its immunisation drive.

AstraZeneca is scaling up releases of COVID-19 vaccine doses to the United Kingdom to the point where it expects to be providing 2 million a week by or before the middle of February.