Deliveries of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in Europe have been delayed in order to improve production capacities and meet the high demand for the jab.
Asian markets traded mixed on Monday after economic data releases showed that Japanese industrial production fell in December but also that China's gross domestic product grew 2.3 percent in 2020 despite the coronavirus pandemic.
However, some of the sentiment was minimized as authorities in China put 29 million people under lockdown measures to curb the spread of Covid-19 after the country reported more than 100 cases of the disease for the sixth day in a row.
The DAX started 0.55 percent in the red. The CAC 40 was 0.48 percent lower in the first minutes of trading. The FTSE 100 declined 0.33 percent.
The Nikkei 225 ended 0.97 percent in the red. Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose by 0.73 percent while in mainland China the Shanghai Composite and the Shenzhen Composite grew 0.80 percent and 1.55 percent, respectively, at the same time.
The Kospi in Seoul dropped 2.25 percent and Australia's S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.78 percent at the end of the trading day.