COVID-19 live updates: 'Extremely unlikely' virus came from Chinese lab, WHO says

Major U.S. pharmacy chains are rolling out their COVID-19 vaccination programs this week, as part of the first phase of the Biden administration's Federal Retail Pharmacy Program for COVID-19 Vaccination.

The program is a collaboration between the federal government, states and territories, and 21 national pharmacy partners and independent pharmacy networks to increase access to COVID-19 vaccinations across the country. The federal government will send an initial shipment of 1 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to 6,500 locations across the country on Feb. 11.

Starting Tuesday, Walgreens will begin accepting appointments for COVID-19 vaccinations as early as Friday, the company told ABC News in an exclusive announcement on "Good Morning America." Health care workers, people over the age of 65 and individuals with preexisting conditions will be prioritized.

"We're just very excited to transition from Phase 1A to this next population and offer the vaccination to the communities we serve every single day," Rina Shah, vice president of pharmacy operations at Walgreens, told ABC News.

However, the Walgreens rollout will be slow, starting in just 15 U.S. states and jurisdictions with limited vaccine doses and appointments available.

Meanwhile, CVS Pharmacy said it will begin accepting appointments on Thursday, with shots going into arms as early as Friday.

There were 89,727 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in the United States on Monday, according to a real-time count kept by Johns Hopkins University.

It's the second straight day that the U.S. has reported under 100,000 newly confirmed infections. Monday's case count is also far less than the country's all-time high of 300,282 new cases on Jan. 2. Meanwhile, Sunday's case count of 89,581 was the lowest the U.S. has reported since Nov. 2, Johns Hopkins data shows.

An additional 1,596 fatalities from COVID-19 were registered nationwide on Monday, down from a peak of 5,085 new deaths on Feb. 4, according to Johns Hopkins data.

COVID-19 data may be skewed due to possible lags in reporting over the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday weekend last month as well as during storm-related closures in some northeastern states last week.

A total of 27,097,346 people in the U.S. have been diagnosed with COVID-19 since the pandemic began, and at least 465,083 have died, according to Johns Hopkins data. The cases include people from all 50 U.S. states, Washington, D.C., and other U.S. territories as well as repatriated citizens.

Much of the country was under lockdown by the end of March as the first wave of pandemic hit. 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 over the summer.

The numbers lingered around 40,000 to 50,000 from mid-August through early October before surging again to record levels, crossing 100,000 for the first time on Nov. 4, then reaching 200,000 on Nov. 27 before topping 300,000 on Jan. 2.

So far, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has authorized two COVID-19 vaccines for emergency use -- one developed by U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech, and another developed by American biotechnology company Moderna and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. More than 42 million vaccine doses have been administered nationwide, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The COVID-19 hospitalization rate in the United States continues to see a downward trend, according to data complied by The COVID Tracking Project, a volunteer-run effort to track the U.S. outbreak.

There are currently 80,055 people hospitalized with COVID-19 symptoms nationwide, the data shows. The figure peaked at around 130,000 a few weeks ago.

"The number of people currently hospitalized with COVID-19 has dropped by 21k in 10 days. In the last week, hospitalizations have decreased by 10% or more in 40 states," The COVID Tracking Project said on Twitter Monday night.

U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg is self-quarantining after a member of his staff contracted COVID-19, his office announced Monday.

An agent who is part of Buttigieg's security detail and has close contact with the newly confirmed cabinet member, as recently as Monday morning, tested positive for COVID-19, according to a statement from U.S. Department of Transportation chief of staff Laura Schiller.

Buttigieg, who has received his first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, tested negative for the disease on Monday. He will receive his second vaccine dose after the quarantine period, according to Schiller.

"Secretary Buttigieg will take all necessary steps to ensure there is no spread, including quarantining for a period of 14 days and will continue to follow all other CDC guidelines," Schiller said in the statement.

Another member of Buttigieg's security team who was in close contact with the infected agent is also quarantining, according to Schiller.