In 44 states, the seven-day average of new cases dropped over 10%.
A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now infected more than 98.7 million people worldwide and killed over 2.1 million of them, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to U.S. President Joe Biden, said received his second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday.
Speaking to reporters at the White House on Thursday afternoon, Fauci said he "felt under the weather for about a day" but now feels fine.
ABC News’ Ben Gittleson contributed to this report.
United Airlines, which reported a $7.1 billion net loss for 2020 in an earnings call Thursday, said it expected to have voluntary COVID-19 testing available at all of its hubs by February.
The airline said it is also working with local governments to classify its employees as essential workers for vaccinations, "both for their safety and the safety of [its] customers."
The carrier said it expects 2021 capacity to be down at least 51% versus the first quarter of 2019.
United said following vaccine distribution, business demand will take 18 to 24 months to recover.
Executives said they expect the "inflection point" in travel recovery to occur in the second half of 2021, but it could happen sooner depending on the pace of vaccine distribution.
ABC News’ Amanda Maile contributed to this report.
American pharmaceutical firm Eli Lilly and Company released new data showing that a laboratory-made protein delivered by infusion may help prevent COVID-19 infections at nursing homes.
A phase 3 trial found that nursing home residents who got the monoclonal antibody drug were 80% less likely to develop symptomatic COVID-19 compared to nursing home residents who got a placebo infusion.
Among all the study participants (including residents and staff), those who got the drug were 57% less likely to develop symptomatic COVID-19.
The Eli Lilly drug, called bamlanivimab, has FDA emergency authorization to treat people already sick with COVID-19 who might need to be hospitalized. The company says it will work with regulators to potentially expand this authorization to include nursing home residents and staff to help prevent outbreaks.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises that those who’ve had monoclonal antibody treatment wait 90 days until getting a COVID-19 vaccine.
ABC News’ Sony Salzman and Dr. Mishal Reja contributed to this report.
In hard-hit California, the daily number of new COVID-19 cases fell below 20,000 on Wednesday, while the number of COVID-19 patients in hospitals is also on the decline, California’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, Dr. Mark Ghaly, told ABC's "GMA3: What You Need To Know."
Ghaly attributed the progress to "the ongoing work of Californians to pay attention to the virus."
"After what was a hard Thanksgiving holiday, I think the regional stay-at-home order that the governor put in place made a difference over the winter holidays," Ghaly said. "We're starting to see that pay off now."
"Almost to the day, three weeks after putting [stay-at-home orders] into place in some of the hardest hit areas, we started to see the numbers come down," he added.
The state's stay-at-home orders are enacted when a region's intensive care unit capacity falls below 15%. Stay-at-home orders are currently in effect in three of the state's five regions: Southern California, the Bay Area and the San Joaquin Valley.
COVID-19 vaccinations are also ramping up.
"The governor gave us a million-vaccine challenge over 10 days that ended last week," Ghaly said. "And we saw a radical increase going from about 40,000-47,000 vaccines given in a day at the beginning of that challenge to over 110,000 vaccines given a day across the state."
California, which has a population of 39.5 million people, has the highest tally of confirmed COVID-19 cases of any U.S. state, with over 3 million patients diagnosed, according to a count kept by Johns Hopkins University.
