Europe has again become the centre of the COVID-19 pandemic. It's prompting some countries to reimpose restrictions as Christmas approaches, and stirring debate over whether vaccines alone are enough to tame COVID-19.
Germany has approved new measures to rein in its record coronavirus infections.
Chancellor Angela Merkel held a videoconference with Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Germany's 16 state governors to coordinate the country's response to the surge.
Ms Merkel says it was agreed that tightening of measures against the virus will in the future be linked to the number of hospital admissions of COVID-19 patients per 100,000 people over a seven-day period.
"We have in fact defined threshold values, above which a certain nationwide set of measures must then be used. This starts with a hospitalisation index, you know that for us this is now the decisive value of three. If this is exceeded, then 2G (only vaccinated or recovered can access communal workplaces) must be introduced nationwide."
In France, where several hundred protesters gathered outside the Austrian Embassy in Paris to demonstrate against Austria's new COVID-19 restrictions, which puts unvaccinated people into lockdown. They suspect France might be next to re-impose curbs aimed at reducing the circulation of the virus.
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