Factbox-Latest on worldwide spread of the coronavirus

(Reuters) - London is set to move into England's highest tier of COVID-19 restrictions, while Canada began its inoculation drive to become the third nation to administer the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine after the UK and the United States.

DEATHS AND INFECTIONS

* For an interactive graphic tracking the global spread of COVID-19, open https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps/ in an external browser. * Eikon users, see COVID-19: MacroVitals https://apac1.apps.cp.thomsonreuters.com/cms/?navid=1592404098 for a case tracker and summary of news.

EUROPE

* London will move into England's highest tier of COVID-19 restrictions, the government has said. A study showed infections in the city rose during the last weeks of a national lockdown even as its prevalence in England as a whole fell.

* Italy is considering more stringent nationwide restrictions during the Christmas holidays.

* The Netherlands will go into a tough second lockdown, with the closure of all schools and shops for at least five weeks.

* Czech restaurants, hotels and indoor sports venues, which reopened from a lockdown only two weeks ago, must shut again from Friday in response to a new rise in infections.

* Sweden, known for its soft-touch response to the pandemic, was close to an all-time high for the number of patients being treated in hospital, according to official figures.

AMERICAS

* Pfizer Inc and partners delivered the first vaccines to 141 of 145 locations targeted by the U.S. government for the first day of a nationwide rollout on Monday.

* Twin efforts were underway in the U.S. Congress to reach a massive government spending deal that would avert a government shutdown, as Republicans and Democrats insisted that they want to include a fresh round of aid.

* Moderna Inc said it was informed by the European Medicines Agency certain documents related to pre-submission talks of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate were unlawfully accessed in a cyberattack on the medicines regulator.

* Canada kicked off its inoculation campaign against COVID-19 by injecting frontline healthcare workers and elderly nursing home residents.

* Argentina's total tally of coronavirus infections touched 1.5 million, making it the ninth country in the world to reach the milestone.

ASIA-PACIFIC

* Singapore became the first Asian country to approve Pfizer-BioNTech's coronavirus vaccine and said it expects to start receiving shots by the end of the year.

* Daily new cases in South Korea continued to hover at unprecedented levels, with the country's prime minister pleading with residents to abide by social distancing rules to avoid greater restrictions.

MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA

* President Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey will impose a five-day full lockdown beginning on Dec. 31.

* South Africa imposed further restrictions as it looks to slow a sharp rise in infections.

MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS

* Drugmaker AstraZeneca Plc has removed children from a mid-to-late stage trial of its COVID-19 vaccine in Britain.

* Russian developers published fresh trial results for their Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine based on new data, and said the shot had again been found to be 91.4% effective in providing protection from COVID-19.

* Israel said it was beginning a second-phase trial with 1,000 people for its COVID-19 vaccine candidate which, if successful, could be ready for the general public by the end of next summer.

ECONOMIC IMPACT

* Asian stocks drifted lower as worries about increasing COVID-19 deaths and lockdowns overshadowed optimism about the roll-out of coronavirus vaccinations.

* Japan's economy will suffer a smaller contraction this year than initially forecast but won't return to pre-coronavirus pandemic levels until at least early 2022, economists in a Reuters poll said.

(Compiled by Uttaresh.V, Devika Syamnath, Charles Regnier; Editing by Bill Berkrot, Anil D'Silva and Arun Koyyur)