Covid-19 global updates: Protests hit Athens and Paris over new coronavirus restrictions, vaccine mandates

Here are some significant developments:

• Regional authorities in Barcelona Thursday were waiting for a judge to greenlight their decision to impose a nightly curfew in northeastern Spain as the delta variant spreads. A Spanish court had ruled the previous day that strict rules confining residents to their homes last year in an effort to curb infections were unconstitutional.
• New coronavirus cases in Tokyo again hit a six-month high Thursday, with more than 1,300 infections reported in the Japanese capital over the past 24 hours, just eight days before the start of the Olympic Games.
• Australian officials in Melbourne said Thursday that they were putting the city and the rest of Victoria state in a snap five-day lockdown, as a growing outbreak of the more virulent delta variant eludes the country’s otherwise successful pandemic response.
• Indonesia, the world’s fourth-most-populous country, has emerged as the hotbed of the pandemic in Asia as it battles the spread of the delta variant. The Muslim-majority nation recorded its highest number of daily cases on Wednesday, registering more than 54,000 infections.