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Britain, which has imposed a fresh lockdown in England, has the highest death toll in Europe at around 49,000 and health experts have warned that with a current average of more than 20,000 cases daily, the country will exceed its “worst case” scenario of 80,000 deaths.

But France, Spain, Italy and Russia have also reported hundreds of deaths a day and together, the five countries account for almost three quarters of the total fatalities.

Already facing the prospect of a wave of job losses and business failures, governments across the region have been forced to order control measures including local curfews, closing non-essential shops and restricting movement.

France, the worst affected country in the EU, has registered more than 48,700 infections per day over the past week and the Paris region health authority said last week that 92% of the region’s ICU capacity was occupied. Facing similar pressures, Belgian and Dutch hospitals have been forced to send some severely ill patients to Germany.

In Italy, which became a global symbol of the crisis when army trucks were used to transport the dead during the early months of the pandemic, daily average new cases are at a peak at more than 32,500. Deaths have been rising by more than 320 per day over the past three weeks.

While the new vaccine being developed by Pfizer and German partner BioNTech will take time to arrive, authorities are hoping that once winter is passed, it will stem further outbreaks next year.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Monday said the European Union would soon sign a contract for 300 million doses of the vaccine, just hours after the drugmaker announced promising late-stage trials.

Yet health experts cautioned that the vaccine, should it be approved, was no silver bullet - not least because the genetic material it’s made from needs to be stored at temperatures of minus 70 degrees Celsius (-94 F) or below.

Such requirements pose a challenge for countries in Asia, as well as Africa and Latin America, where intense heat is often compounded by poor infrastructure.

Meanwhile, Brazil’s health regulator said it had suspended clinical trials of China’s Sinovac Biotech Covid-19 vaccine after an “adverse incident” involving a volunteer recipient, a blow for one of the most advanced vaccine candidates.

Sinovac Biotech on Tuesday stood by its creation, saying: “We are confident in the safety of the vaccine”.

The Brazilian regulator Anvisa said it had “ruled to interrupt the clinical study of the CoronaVac vaccine after a serious adverse incident” involving a volunteer recipient on October 29.

It said it could not give details on what happened because of privacy regulations, but that such incidents included death, potentially fatal side effects, serious disability, hospitalization, birth defects and other “clinically significant events.”

Sinovac, however, said the incident was “not related to the vaccine”, adding it will “continue to communicate with Brazil on this matter.”

The public health center coordinating the trials of the vaccine in Brazil, the Butantan Institute, said it was “surprised” by Anvisa’s decision.

CoronaVac has been caught up in a messy political battle in Brazil, where its most visible backer has been Sao Paulo Governor Joao Doria, a top opponent of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro.

The Sinovac, Pfizer and Oxford vaccines are all in Phase 3 trials, the final stage of testing before regulatory approval.

All are being tested in Brazil, the country with the second-highest death toll in the pandemic after the United States, with more than 162,000 people killed by the new coronavirus.