Coronavirus updates: US reports nearly 300,000 new cases in all-time high

Operation Warp Speed's Moncef Slaoui and Gen. Gus Perna acknowledged for the first time Wednesday that vaccination numbers aren’t high as they hoped, but they anticipate an escalation in the coming weeks.

Officials said 14 million doses have been shipped to states and another six million would arrive next week. 

So far, only 2 million shots have been logged in a federal system.

“We agree that the number is lower than what we hoped for,” Slaoui told reporters. 

“We would like to invite anybody who has energy to participate and help us further improve administration of the vaccine to come to the table, with your sleeves up and come up and help us with specific ideas,” Slaoui said. 

Perna said the administration was working through the details but that he wasn’t concerned. He said he expects that between Jan. 8 and Jan. 15, the number of shots given will ramp up dramatically as more pharmacies come on board.

"Essentially it’s been just 12 days. There’s two holidays. There’s been three major snow storms,” Perna said. “There is everybody working through, you know, how to do the notification, how to make sure we’re administering it the right way, how to ensure that it stays in accordance with the cold chain… And here’s what I have confidence in: Every day everybody gets better. And I believe that uptake will increase.” 

ABC News’ Anne Flaherty contributed to this report.

There are 124,686 Americans currently hospitalized with COVID-19 -- a national record. In the last month, the number of patients hospitalized has increased by 36%, according to ABC News’ analysis of data compiled by the COVID Tracking Project.

Over 5.8 million COVID-19 cases have been reported so far in December -- approximately 2.4 million cases more than November, which was the second worst month on record.

California is leading the nation with the highest average of daily cases per 100,000 people in the last seven days, followed by Arizona, Tennessee and Delaware, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos contributed to this report.

After a Colorado man was determined Tuesday to have the COVID-19 variant detected in the United Kingdom, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said the new variant “very likely exists in many states.”

“We don’t yet have a good idea how prevalent it is” in Colorado or the U.S., Polis said at a news conference Wednesday.

The man, in his 20s, is believed to be the first known case of the variant in the U.S. He has mild symptoms and is recovering, Polis said. The man has had no travel history and is in isolation, officials said.

There is another possible case of the variant that has not been confirmed, State Epidemiologist Dr. Rachel Herlihy said Wednesday.

Both individuals are National Guard personnel who were sent to a nursing home where there was an outbreak, she said. National Guard personnel arrived at the facility on Dec. 23. There's no evidence that the variant is circulating in that facility but testing is ongoing, Herlihy said.

Randy Fitzgerald, regional vice president of the nursing home, Good Samaritan Society, said in a statement, "The Colorado Department of Health and Environment have been on-site to test employees and residents for the variant. We expect to have the results in the next few days. We will continue to work closely with the state while following the CDC’s infection control measures."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it expects "there will be additional cases that are likely to be detected in the coming days."

"Viruses constantly change through mutation, and new variants of a virus are expected to occur over time," the CDC said.

The CDC added that the U.K. variant doesn't appear to cause more severe disease or mortality, but warned it does appear to have a higher transmission rate.

“I’m proud that we detected it here in Colorado as quickly as we did,” Polis said.

Some Floridians took chairs and blankets to wait in line in Fort Myers overnight for a chance to get the vaccine.

Vaccinations are being offered to high-risk front-line health care workers and people 65 and over, the Fort Myers News-Press reported.