(Reuters.) Here is what you should know right now about the coronavirus:

White House confirms that less than 1,000,000 U.S.-born children receive COVID-19 shots during their first week of eligibility.

The White House announced that more than 950,000 children in the United States aged between 5 and 11 years old will have their COVID-19 shots by Wednesday. This is as the government has increased vaccinations for younger children. On Nov. 3, the United States started giving COVID-19 vaccine by BioNTech/Pfizer to children aged 5-11 years old.

The average seven-day number of COVID-19 total cases in America was about 73,000. This is consistent with Dr Rochelle Walensky, CDC Director. She also stated that the hospitalization rate is flat at 5,000 per day. In the United States, the seven-day mean of daily death fell by 11% to approximately 1,000 per day.

France is experiencing the 5th wave COVID-related epidemic

France’s fifth coronavirus outbreak is beginning, Olivier Veran, French Health Minister, said Wednesday that his ministry had registered 11,883 cases. This was the second consecutive day with more than 10,000 new cases. Since mid-October, new cases saw a double-digit increase in number each week.

Veran, TF1 TV, stated, “Several neighboring countries are already experiencing a 5th wave of COVID epidemic. What we are seeing in France clearly seems like the beginning of a 5th wave,” adding that virus circulation was increasing.

Moderna (NASDAQ: COVID-19 patent dispute heads to court. U.S. NIH chief says

U.S. National Institutes of Health scientists “played a major part” in Moderna Inc’s COVID-19 vaccination. The agency will defend its claim to be co-owner of the patents, Dr Francis Collins of NIH stated Wednesday.

Moderna omitted three NIH scientists in its July application, which was first published by The New York Times Tuesday.

Moderna acknowledged in a statement sent to Reuters that scientists from the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseasesss (NIAID), had played a substantial role in creating Moderna’s messenger RNA(mRNA) vaccine. However, it stated that it doesn’t agree with patent claims made by the agency.

U.S. brokers J&J-COVAX deal to send vaccines to conflict zones, Blinken says

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday the United States has brokered a deal between Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:) and the COVAX vaccine-sharing program for the delivery of the company’s COVID-19 vaccine to people living in conflict zones.

A senior administration official said the deal means doses of J&J’s vaccine can be distributed in conflict zones and other humanitarian settings by organizations other than governments, which have in the past been restricted by liability concerns. Under the deal, 300,000 doses of J&J’s single-shot vaccine would be made available to front-line humanitarian workers and U.N. peacekeepers, the official said.

Grave COVID-19-related sleep apnea

Researchers say that people suffering from COVID-19 are at greater risk for severe illness.

The risk of contracting COVID-19 did not rise with severity. However, patients with higher scores in the “apneahypopnia” index – which measures the severity and severity of their breathing problems – had a higher chance of becoming infected, according to doctors Cinthya Pera Orbea, Reena Mehra, and their colleagues, who reported Wednesday in JAMA Network Open. Pena Orbea or Mehra said that it’s not known if patients with sleep apnea can also be at risk for severe COVID-19.