Coronavirus updates: Birx warns of 'very different' spread of COVID-19

According to an internal memo from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that was obtained by ABC News, 25% of the nation's hospitals are reporting that beds in intensive care units are more than 80% full.

The memo, which is circulated to the highest levels of the federal government and is used to determine daily priorities for the agencies working on COVID-19 response, said 29 U.S. states and territories are in an upward trajectory of infections, while 10 jurisdictions are at a plateau and 17 others are in a downward trend.

There were 314,894 new cases confirmed during the period of Oct. 1-Oct. 7, a 6% increase from the previous week. There were also 4,730 coronavirus-related fatalities recorded during the period of Oct. 1-Oct. 7, a 5.2% decrease compared with the week prior, according to the memo.

Meanwhile, the national positivity rate for COVID-19 tests increased from 4.5% to 5.7% in week-to-week comparisons, the memo said.

In Arkansas, the seven-day positivity rate for COVID-19 tests jumped from 7.1% to 22.8% -- a 300% increase -- between the weeks ending Sept. 24 and Oct. 1, according to the memo.

Delaware's seven-day COVID-19 case rate rose 41.6% to 1,009.5 cases per 1 million population on Oct. 4 from the previous week -- much higher than the regional rate of 633.5 cases per 1 million. The state's number of new COVID-19 cases, deaths and hospitalizations are all trending upward, the memo said.

In Hawaii, pet shelters are at capacity due to the financial impact of the coronavirus pandemic. On Oct. 30, the state will initiate the largest pet airlift across the Pacific Ocean in history, transporting hundreds of animals to Seattle from Kauai, Honolulu, Maui and Hawaii Island, according to the memo.

Idaho's daily average of COVID-19 hospitalizations increased from 7.3 to 8.7 per 100,000 population during the week ending Oct. 4, the memo said.

Indiana has also seen an upward trend in its seven-day COVID-19 hospitalization rate. Meanwhile, the state's number of new COVID-19 cases continues to rise, with the average of new daily cases rising 50% over the peak in April and May, according to the memo.

Multiple counties in Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia, Cambria, Bradford and Columbia -- reported their number of new COVID-19 cases doubling in the week ending Oct. 4

ABC News' Josh Margolin contributed to this report.

Russia confirmed 12,126 new cases of COVID-19 over the past 24 hours, the country’s highest single-day increase since the start of the pandemic.

The previous record was 11,656 new cases set on May 11.

An additional 201 coronavirus-related fatalities were also registered in the last day. The country's cumulative totals now stand at 1,272,238 confirmed cases and 22,257 deaths, according to Russia’s coronavirus response headquarters.

More than 30% of the newly confirmed cases -- 3,701 -- were registered in Moscow, the epicenter of the country's COVID-19 outbreak.

Russian authorities have said there's no immediate plan to impose a second nationwide lockdown, even as the country's outbreak grows after most coronavirus-related restrictions were lifted over the summer. The country has seen its daily caseload double over the past month, while its capital has had a 53% rise in new infections in the last week, according to a report by The Moscow Times, the only independent English-language news outlet reporting within Russia.

Officials in Moscow, however, have recommended that the elderly self-isolate at home and also encouraged businesses to have at least one-third of their employees work from home. School holidays in the capital this month were extended from one to two weeks.

ABC News' Alina Lobzina contributed to this report.

There were 56,191 new cases of COVID-19 identified in the United States on Thursday, according to a real-time count kept by Johns Hopkins University.

The latest daily tally is up by nearly 6,000 from the previous day but is still under the country’s record set on July 16, when there were 77,255 new cases in a 24-hour-reporting period.

An additional 961 coronavirus-related fatalities were also recorded Thursday, down from a peak of 2,666 new fatalities reported on April 17.

A total of 7,607,250 people in the United States have been diagnosed with COVID-19 since the pandemic began, and at least 212,784 of them have died, according to Johns Hopkins. The cases include people from all 50 U.S. states, Washington, D.C. and other U.S. territories as well as repatriated citizens.

By May 20, all U.S. states had begun lifting stay-at-home orders and other restrictions put in place to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. The day-to-day increase in the country's cases then hovered around 20,000 for a couple of weeks before shooting back up and crossing 70,000 for the first time in mid-July. The daily tally of new cases has gradually come down since then but has started to climb again in recent weeks.

An ABC News analysis of COVID-19 trends across all 50 U.S. states as well as Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico found there were increases in newly confirmed cases over the past two weeks in 28 states.

The analysis also found increases in the daily positivity rate of COVID-19 tests in 25 states, increases in COVID-19 hospitalizations in 35 states and increases in daily COVID-19 death tolls in 18 states plus Puerto Rico.

The seven-day average of new cases in the United States has now surpassed 44,000, the highest it has been since Aug. 21.

Two states -- Montana and South Dakota -- reported their highest single-day increases in the number of new COVID-19 cases. Seven states -- Arkansas, Iowa, Montana, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Wisconsin and Wyoming -- hit a record number of current COVID-19 hospitalizations in a day.

Although figures in the Northeast still remain relatively low, the number of new cases continues to slowly increase, relative to the figures that were seen during the spring. The region's seven-day average of new cases is now the highest it has been since June 2. In the last month alone, that average has increased by more than 69%.

In the Midwest, the number of new cases continues to hit record levels, averaging 13,200 cases per day, largely driven by consistently high caseloads in Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin. The number of current COVID-19 hospitalizations in many midwestern states also continues to climb. Since Sunday, current hospitalizations in Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Wisconsin have all hit record highs.

The number of new cases in the South remain significantly lower than they were throughout the summer. However, the South still contributes to more than 45% of the country's daily regional caseload, with an average of over 18,000 new cases per day.

Over the past three weeks, the number of new cases in the West has increased by 26%. Idaho and Utah still continue to produce high daily case totals. Although the figures in California are on a downward trend, the state continues to report a high number of new cases every day.

The trends were all analyzed from data collected and published by the COVID Tracking Project over the past two weeks, using the linear regression trend line of the seven-day moving average.

ABC News' Benjamin Bell, Brian Hartman, Soorin Kim and Arielle Mitropolous contributed to this report.