Updated 6.30am

Italy, one of the countries worst hit by COVID-19, will be placed under new restrictions over the Christmas and New Year periods, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced late Friday.

Under the new measures, shops, bars and restaurants will be closed and travel between regions will be banned, and in theory only one daily outside trip per household will be permitted. 

Religious celebrations will be allowed until 10:00 pm.

Italy's new measures came as many governments clamp down on socialising over Christmas and New Year, which is expected to fuel a jump in virus deaths in early 2021.

"Our experts fear that the infection curve will increase during the Christmas period," Conte said.

The prime minister conceded that the authorities had neither the means nor the will to monitor compliance with containment measures, but he asked Italians to respect a new limit of people hosting two adult guests at home.

Food shops, hairdressing salons, pharmacies, tobacconists and laundries as well as bookstores will, however, remain open.

Conte specified that the confinement would be relaxed on December 28, 29, 30 as well as on January 4.

On these days, shops can remain open until 9:00 pm and people will be allowed to move about freely.

Italy has 60 million inhabitants and one of the oldest populations in Europe.

US approves Moderna vaccine

Meanwhile, the United States authorised Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use, paving the way for millions of doses of a second vaccine to be shipped across the hardest-hit country in the world.

With the US now registering over 2,500 deaths a day from COVID-19, senior US officials including Vice President Mike Pence got early vaccinations on Friday.

Pence's public inoculation was the most high-profile attempt yet at persuading vaccine-sceptic Americans to join a national effort to halt a pandemic that has killed at least 1.66 million people and infected more than 74 million worldwide.

President-elect Joe Biden, who will take office on January 20, announced he would take the vaccine, also in public, on Monday.

Macron 'slowed down' 

In hard-hit Europe, unease mounted after Slovakian Prime Minister Igor Matovic tested positive for COVID-19 a week after attending a European Union summit in Brussels.

The summit is believed to be where French President Emmanuel Macron caught the virus -- his diagnosis has led a host of European leaders and French officials to rush into self-isolation.

Macron acknowledged Friday he had been "slowed down" by his infection, but insisted he was still actively involved in government business including Brexit trade talks.

US President Donald Trump, who has been a longtime sceptic about the seriousness of the pandemic, wished Macron "a speedy recovery."

The United States is the first nation to authorise the two-dose regimen from Moderna, now the second vaccine to be deployed in a Western country after the one developed by Pfizer and BioNTech.

Millions of doses will start shipping out as early as this weekend from cold-storage sites outside Memphis and Louisville.

Elsewhere, world leaders from Russian President Vladimir Putin to Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have also pledged to get public injections to boost confidence in the vaccines.

Trump, who may be currently immune after recovering from COVID-19, has also signalled he would willing to take the vaccine.

Trump was notably absent from Pence's vaccination event, but he has been eager to take credit for record-fast vaccine breakthroughs despite more than 310,000 American deaths.

Two billion doses 

Facing pressure to approve vaccines, the European Union intends to begin its inoculations with the Pfizer-BioNTech dose before the end of the year, with some countries naming December 27 as a start date.

Poorer countries also got a boost Friday when the World Health Organization and partners said vaccines would be distributed early next year to the 190 countries in its Covax initiative, a pooling effort formed to ensure equitable distribution. 

"The light at the end of the tunnel has grown a little bit brighter," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual press conference.

Two billion doses have been secured from developers AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Novovax and Sanofi/GSK, though none of their candidates have so far received authorisation for use.

Austria's chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, on Friday announced a new month-long lockdown starting December 26 in response to a wave of infections.

And Sweden made a U-turn on face masks, recommending that they are worn on public transport at peak times, having previously resisted their use in the fight against COVID-19.

In South Africa, Health Minister Zwelini Mkhize signaled the detection of a severe coronavirus variant that could explain the rapid spread of a second wave of cases.

And Mexico City's mayor announced that the capital and neighbouring state would suspend almost all activities from this weekend as virus cases rise -- allowing only such essentials as the sale of food, energy, transport, manufacturing and financial services.

But in Brazil, President Jair Bolsonaro -- who has systemically downplayed the coronavirus -- continued to undermine the country's own immunisation campaign.

He mocked the potential side-effects of the Pfizer vaccine, saying "in the Pfizer contract it's very clear: 'we're not responsible for any side effects.' If you turn into a crocodile, it's your problem."

Qatar inaugurated its latest stadium on Friday for the 2022 World Cup with a half-capacity 20,000-strong crowd who had all been tested beforehand.