German Chancellor Angela Merkel is planning a 'lockdown light' which would mainly focus on the closure of bars and restaurants to slow down a second wave of coronavirus infections, the Bild newspaper reported on Monday.
Shops could remain open with certain restrictions under Merkel's plan, which she will discuss with Germany's 16 state premiers on Wednesday, the report said.
As details of the plan were emerging the city of Nuremberg cancelled its famous Christmas market.
Meanwhile, in France, a health official admitted the country has "lost control" of the coronavirus pandemic amid fears the true infection rate may be double the official figures.
A record 52,010 new coronavirus cases were reported in France on Sunday.
However, Jean-François Delfraissy, the head of the government’s virus advisory body, said the true count is probably closer to 100,000 positive tests per day.
“We’re in a very difficult, even critical situation,” he said.
“There are probably more than 50,000 cases per day. We estimate, on the scientific committee, that we are more in the region of 100,000 cases per day.”
The health official admitted even he was surprised at the “brutality” of the second wave, with more than half of France’s intensive care beds currently occupied by coronavirus patients.
He warned the winter wave could be more damaging than the peak in spring.
Dr Delfraissy said: “This second wave is most likely going to be bigger than the first and its impact on our health system and ICUs will be clear very soon.
“I think that a lot of people, many of our fellow citizens haven’t yet realised what was coming.”
Dr Eric Caumes, of Pitie-Salpetriere Hospital in Paris, told broadcaster Franceinfo that “we have lost control of the epidemic”.
Governments across Europe are now struggling to balance new restrictions against the need to revive economies battered by the crisis, while public support for new measures is being tested.
In Germany, thousands protested against virus rules in Berlin at the weekend.
An estimated 2,000 demonstrators gathered outside a venue that was to host the World Health Summit, an event that was moved online amid spiralling infections in the capital.
Police said about 600 officers were sent to disperse the crowd who protested against “being robbed of our freedom” while not practising social distancing.
Germany, seen as a world leader in suppressing the spread of the infection, has struggled to contain a second wave despite introducing local lockdowns and expanding compulsory mask-wearing.
A total of 8,685 new cases were recorded throughout the country on Monday.
In Spain, which has had more than one million cases of the disease, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez warned the country was facing an "extreme situation” as he announced a new state of emergency on Sunday.
He imposed local night-time curfews everywhere but the Canary Islands and tightened travel restrictions between some Spanish regions.
Mr Sanchez said: “We are living in an extreme situation ... it is the most serious health crisis in the last century.”
Total cases in Spain rose to 1,046,132 on Friday, the first European country to hit a seven-figure infection count, while the death toll is nearing 35,000.
The Catalonia region said on Monday it was studying imposing a lockdown on weekends - a day after night-time curfew came into effect across the country.
"It is a scenario which is on the table because it is during the weekend that there are more social interactions," the spokeswoman for the regional government, Meritxell Budo, told Catalan public radio.
Italy, the country worst hit in the early stages of the crisis in March, also imposed a raft of new curbs, ordering restaurants and bars to close from 6pm.
In Belgium, authorities warned the country's hospitals may reach maximum capacity for intensive care patients in two weeks.
About 12,500 new cases are being reported every day, with an average 467 people admitted to Belgian hospitals every 24 hours.
Belgium's Covid-19 crisis centre spokesman Yves Van Laethem said if nothing changes "we are likely to reach 2,000 patients in intensive care in two weeks".
"That is our maximum capacity," he said.
In some positive news, findings from the Oxford University and AstraZeneca vaccine trial suggest the jab triggers immune responses in both young and old people.
However, UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock cautioned that the vaccine would not be widely available until next year and said: "We're not there yet".
British authorities are likely to tighten restrictions on more areas of the country this week amid mixed signs about whether recent measures have stemmed a steep rise in coronavirus infections.
Government scientific advisers say there are some signals the increase has begun to level off since a three-tier virus risk system came into effect, but that it is too soon to be certain.
A total of 19,790 coronavirus cases, with 151 new deaths, were reported in the UK on Sunday.
