Coronavirus updates: 84% of California population to go on lockdown Sunday night

The number of new COVID-19 cases and deaths are increasing again, following a Thanksgiving data slowdown, an internal Health and Human Services memo obtained by ABC News shows. 

From Nov. 28 to Dec. 4, new cases increased 3.2% and deaths went up 16% compared with the previous week, the memo said.

The national test-positivity rate rose to 12.1% from 10% in week-to-week comparisons.

Across the country, 30% of hospitals have more than 80% of their intensive care unit beds filled, and 29% of ventilators in use are occupied by COVID-19 patients, a slight increase.

In Arizona, ICU bed use increased 458% from Sept. 29 to Dec. 2, according to HHS. As of Dec. 2, California had 1,810 ICU beds available, the lowest capacity during the pandemic. Hospitals in the southwest and southeast regions of Colorado had reached ICU capacity as of Dec. 3, the memo said.

-ABC News' Josh Margolin

Hospitals in New Mexico may soon move to "crisis standards of care," meaning doctors would ration services based on a patient's likelihood of surviving.

The declaration was likely to come Monday, Gov. Michelle Lynn Lujan Grisham said in an interview with the Washington Post., with each hospital making its own decision about whether to move to the crisis plan.

As of Saturday, New Mexico had reported 104,935 infections and 1,706 deaths from the virus, according to the state health department.

The United States death toll from the coronavirus surpassed 280,000 Saturday afternoon.

At least 280,090 Americans have died from COVID-19, according to the latest data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

The U.S. surpassed 270,000 deaths on Tuesday.

The seven-day average for daily deaths is 1,949, according to the COVID Tracking Project.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predicted this week that the U.S. death toll from the virus could reach 329,000 by Dec. 26.

-ABC News' Ahmad Hemingway

As states begin dry runs for distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine, Pfizer and the federal government are still hammering out logistics around handling the company's candidate, ABC News has learned.

HonorHealth in Phoenix ran a simulation on Friday for how it would distribute a vaccine to health care workers once the FDA approves a candidate. But it was incomplete due to the remaining logistical questions.

After each vial of Pfizer's vaccine is removed from ultra-cold storage at minus 80 degrees Celsius, it is thawed, then diluted with saline by trained chemists who then portion it out into five separate syringes.

But some intricacies of the process are unknown, such as how many times the vaccine's shipping container can be opened, how much time can elapse between thawing and injection, and how the dose should be transported to the injection site. 

The hospital is also uncertain how many doses it will receive and when, should the FDA authorize emergency use of Pfizer's vaccine.

Pfizer has not commented on the specific handling of the vaccine once it's taken out of the freezers and thawed.

-ABC News' Matt Gutman