Coronavirus updates: US will soon have 'half a million' deaths, CDC says

It's just over a week into 2021 and the United States has already seen its worst week on record for both COVID-19 infections and deaths.

In the first 10 days of the month, the country has recorded some 2.35 million COVID-19 cases and more than 28,000 deaths from the disease. That works out to be around 163 Americans diagnosed with COVID-19 every minute, and approximately one American death from the disease reported every 30 seconds, according to an ABC News analysis of data compiled by The COVID Tracking Project, a volunteer-run effort to track the U.S. outbreak.

The U.S. has not seen a day with fewer than 100,000 new cases in more than two months, with a record-high average of 243,000 newly confirmed infections every day. In the last week alone, that average of daily cases has increased by approximately 16.3%.

Sunday marked the 41st consecutive day with more than 1,000 fatalities from COVID-19 reported nationwide. The country's average of daily deaths jumped by 21.4% in the last seven days.

Meanwhile, more than 129,000 people are currently hospitalized with COVID-19 across the U.S. -- a number that has hovered around 130,000 for the last several days.

At the current rate, January could surpass December's staggering COVID-19 totals to become the nation's hardest hit month of the pandemic.

ABC News' Brian Hartman and Arielle Mitropoulos contributed to this report.

Pope Francis' personal doctor has died of complications related to COVID-19, the Vatican's newspaper L’Osservatore Romano announced Saturday.

Fabrizio Soccorsi, 78, was being treated for cancer at a hospital in Rome at the time of his death, according to the newspaper.

Soccorsi was chosen by the pontiff to be his personal physician in 2015.

In an interview with Italian television channel Canale 5 that aired Sunday night, Francis said COVID-19 vaccinations will begin at the Vatican next week and that he will get the shot.

ABC News' Phoebe Natanson contributed to this report.

Sputnik V, a COVID-19 vaccine developed by Russia, has been registered by the Palestinian Ministry of Health for emergency use in Palestinian self-ruled territory, Russia's sovereign wealth fund announced Monday.

The first shipment of doses is expected to arrive next month, according to a press release from the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), which is responsible for worldwide marketing of the vaccine.

The RDIF didn't say how many doses would be shipped to the Palestinian Authority -- which governs parts of the West Bank under interim peace deals with Israel -- but that supplies would be facilitated by manufacturing partners in India, China, South Korea and other countries.

As of Jan. 5, the World Health Organization had recorded more than 157,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the occupied Palestinian territories, including at least 1,578 deaths.

ABC News' Patrick Reevell contributed to this report.

More than 50,000 doses of a COVID-19 vaccine developed by U.S. biotechnology company Moderna are expected to arrive in France on Monday, according to a statement from the country's health ministry.

France should have nearly 8 million doses of the Moderna vaccine by the end of June, the health ministry said.

Last week, the European Medicines Agency authorized the Moderna vaccine for use across the European Union. Another COVID-19 vaccine developed by U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech was approved two weeks earlier. Both vaccines are administered in two doses.

French Health Minister Olivier Veran told Europe 1 radio that the Moderna doses will then be sent to towns and cities with the highest virus circulation. The doses should reach vaccination centers by Wednesday, he said.

By the end of the weekend, Veran said, more than 100,000 people should have received a first dose of the vaccine.

France has faced criticism for a slow vaccine rollout compared to its EU neighbours.

ABC News' Ibtissem Guenfoud contributed to this report.