Bahrain will suspend dine-in services at restaurants and cafes and move public and private schools to remote learning for three weeks to contain the spread of the coronavirus, the health ministry said.
It said it had detected a new variant of coronavirus in a number of cases, without specifying which kind.
The new lockdown measures will come into effect on Sunday.
There has been an uptick in coronavirus cases in the Gulf kingdom since December. The country registered 459 new cases on Wednesday, adding to a total of nearly 100,000 since the start of the pandemic, with 370 deaths.
The small island state has the third highest rate of vaccinations per capita in the world so far, according to the Our World in Data website, which is run by an Oxford University research programme.
Bahrain offers its citizens either the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine or one manufactured by Chinese state-backed pharmaceutical giant Sinopharm free of charge.
The kingdom also approved the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine on Monday for emergency use.
Israel's military is poised to evacuate Palestinian civilians from Rafah and assault Hamas hold-outs in the southern Gaza Strip city, a senior Israeli defence official said, despite international warnings of a humanitarian catastrophe.
Marine wildlife experts were frantically trying to rescue some 140 pilot whales stranded on Thursday in the shallow waters of an estuary in the southwest of the state of Western Australia.
A grand jury has charged 18 people with allegedly participating in an Arizona fake elector scheme to re-elect then-US President Donald Trump in 2020, the state's attorney general said on Wednesday.
India is inspecting facilities of spice makers MDH and Everest for compliance with quality standards after sales of some of their products were halted in Hong Kong and Singapore for allegedly containing high levels of a cancer-causing pesticide.
Israel is poised to send troops into Rafah, the Gazan city it sees as the last bastion of Hamas, Israeli media reported on Wednesday, saying preparations were under way to evacuate war-displaced Palestinian civilians who have been sheltering there.