After opening itself to New Year's revelers, Dubai is now being blamed by several countries for spreading the coronavirus abroad, even as questions swirl about the city-state's ability to handle reported record spikes in virus cases.

The government's Dubai Media Office says the sheikhdom is doing all it can to handle the pandemic, though it has repeatedly declined to answer questions from The Associated Press about its hospital capacity.

Europe's row with AstraZeneca worsened after Germany declined to recommend the firm's coronavirus vaccine for older people, while the more contagious South African variant of the virus was detected for the first time in the already hard-hit United States.

Experts from the World Health Organization visited a Wuhan hospital Friday as the fieldwork began in a closely watched coronavirus origins probe that will take in a food market presumed to be "ground zero" of the pandemic.

The World Health Organization's European branch on Thursday said it is too early to ease virus restrictions in Europe despite a drop in new cases in most countries.

WHO experts probing the origins of the coronavirus must be allowed to work free from "political interference", Beijing said Thursday, in a rebuke to the White House, as the team's closely watched mission began.

Pfizer and BioNTech, makers of a Covid-19 vaccine, said on Thursday that their product is effective against coronavirus variants that have emerged in Britain and South Africa.

World Health Organization experts emerged from quarantine in China Thursday to begin a long-awaited investigation into the origins of the devastating coronavirus pandemic, which has shown no signs of slowing down.

The United States wants a "robust and clear" international probe into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic in China, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Wednesday.

Lebanon on Wednesday launched its Covid-19 vaccination plan, announcing that it is seeking to inoculate 80% of its residents in 2021.

British citizens returning home from roughly 30 countries deemed at "high risk" from new coronavirus variants could soon have to quarantine in hotels, reports said on Wednesday.