Health News Roundup: French new COVID cases at seven-week high; Global coronavirus cases surpass 90 million and more

Global coronavirus cases surpass 90 million in battle on new variant Worldwide coronavirus cases surpassed 90 million on Monday, according to Reuters tally, as nations around the globe scramble to procure vaccines and continue to extend or reinstate lockdowns to fight new coronavirus variants.

Following is a summary of current health news briefs.

Novavax bosses cash out for $46 million with COVID-19 vaccine trials still under way

Top executives at U.S. pharmaceutical company Novavax Inc aren't waiting to see how well their COVID-19 vaccine works before they reap the financial rewards. Chief Executive Stanley Erck and three of his top lieutenants have sold roughly $46 million of company stock since the start of last year, according to a Reuters review of securities filings, capitalizing on a near 3,000% rally in Novavax shares fueled by investors betting on the success of the shot under development.

Two gorillas at San Diego Zoo test positive for COVID-10

Two captive gorillas at the San Diego Zoo have tested positive for COVID-19 after falling ill, and a third gorilla appears also to be symptomatic, California Governor Gavin Newsom said on Monday in an online update about the coronavirus pandemic. Newsom said the source of infection is still being investigated to determine whether the virus was transmitted between animals or from humans to the apes.

PM Johnson says UK in 'race against time' as it faces worst weeks of pandemic

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Monday Britain was in "a race against time" to roll out COVID-19 vaccines as deaths hit record highs and hospitals ran out of oxygen, and his top medical adviser said the pandemic's worst weeks were imminent. A new, more transmissible variant of the disease is now surging through the population, with one in 20 people in parts of London now infected, threatening to overwhelm the National Health Service (NHS) as hospitals fill up with patients.

China says WHO team to probe COVID-19 origins will arrive Thursday

A World Health Organization (WHO) team of international experts tasked with investigating the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic will arrive in China on Jan. 14, Chinese authorities said on Monday. Lack of authorisation from Beijing had delayed the arrival of the 10-strong team on a long-awaited mission to investigate early infections, in what China's foreign ministry called a "misunderstanding".

BioNTech lifts 2021 COVID-19 vaccine output target to 2 billion doses

Pfizer Inc's partner BioNTech SE has boosted the 2021 delivery target for their COVID-19 vaccine to 2 billion doses, up from 1.3 billion previously, as they add new production lines and as more doses can be extracted per vial. Special syringes known as low dead space syringes allow for extraction of six vaccine doses from a standard vial, instead of the usual five, avoiding wasting unused liquid left in a syringe.

Global coronavirus cases surpass 90 million in battle on new variant

Worldwide coronavirus cases surpassed 90 million on Monday, according to Reuters tally, as nations around the globe scramble to procure vaccines and continue to extend or reinstate lockdowns to fight new coronavirus variants. The new COVID-19 variants discovered initially in the United Kingdom and South Africa are rapidly spreading globally.

French new COVID cases at seven-week high

France's new COVID-19 infections are on average increasing by more than 18,000 a day, a seven-week high, and the number of people hospitalised is rising again as the country grapples with the more infectious variant of the virus first found in Britain. These latest trends, published on Monday, will be discussed in the coming days by the government which is pondering whether to impose a third national lockdown and extend a 6 pm curfew, now enforced in some areas, to all of France.

U.S. sets COVID-19 death record for second week, cases surge

The United States lost more than 22,000 lives to COVID-19 last week, setting a record for the second week in a row, as new cases also hit a weekly high. California was the state with the most deaths at 3,315 in the week ended Jan. 10, or about eight out of every 100,000 people, up 44% from the prior week, according to a Reuters analysis of state and county reports.

Lilly Alzheimer's drug slows mental, functional decline in mid-stage trial, shares jump

Eli Lilly and Co said on Monday a small trial of its experimental Alzheimer's drug found that it slowed by about a third the rate of decline in a combined measure of cognition and function in patients at an early stage of the mind-wasting disease. The news sent shares of the Indianapolis-based drugmaker up as much as 13%.

'We're going to run out': New York urges U.S. to increase vaccine supply

New York officials said on Monday that they feared efforts to accelerate the vaccination of people against the novel coronavirus will be hampered by an insufficient supply of doses from the U.S. government. In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio has said he wants to vaccinate 1 million residents, about an eighth of the population, by the end of January.

(With inputs from agencies.)