COVID updates: New Zealand imposes restrictions amid omicron outbreak

On average, about 21,000 virus-positive Americans are being admitted to hospitals each day -- a figure that has more than doubled over the last month.

WellSpan Chambersburg Hospital in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, has more patients now than any point in the pandemic, according to nurse Erin Hammond.

"Our emergency rooms are full to overflowing. Our critical care unit has now doubled up rooms. We're taking more patients -- sicker patients -- than we ever have before," Hammond told ABC News.

She noted that she's seen people in their 20s, 30s and 40s "ending up very sick and dying."

"It's incredibly difficult seeing patients die day after day after day," she said. And after a patient dies, the hospital must "refill their beds as quickly as they emptied."

-ABC News' Arielle Mitropoulos

New Mexico leaders are asking state employees and National Guard members to volunteer as substitute teachers and child care workers due to "extreme staffing shortages" amid the COVID-19 case surge.

"Many schools are being forced to shift to online learning and child care facilities are being forced to temporarily close when staff members test positive," state officials said in a statement Wednesday.

Since the holidays, about 60 school districts and charter schools switched to remote learning and 75 child care centers partially or completely closed due to staffing shortages, according to the state.

"The additional staffing will allow schools to avoid the disruptive process of switching between remote and in-person learning and prevent child care programs from having to shut down," state officials said.

The volunteers would have to complete the requirements necessary to be licensed as a substitute, including a background check and an online workshop.

While it's not clear how many people have placed an order for free COVID-19 tests since the White House's site launched Tuesday, the order form on the U.S. Postal Service website -- special.usps.com/testkits -- has been visited over 27 million times so far.

This initiative from the Biden administration' allows Americans to order up to four free at-home rapid tests per household.

-ABC News' Cheyenne Haslett

Following weeks of increasing cases, forecast models used by the CDC suggest that U.S. death totals will likely continue to increase over the next four weeks.

The models predict about 32,000 more Americans could die from COVID-19 over just the next two weeks.

By Feb. 12, about 931,000 total lives could be lost in the U.S. to the virus.

The CDC obtains the forecasts from the COVID-19 Forecast Hub at UMass Amherst, where a team monitors and combines forecasting models from the nation’s top researchers. The team then creates an ensemble -- displayed like a hurricane forecast spaghetti plot -- usually with a wide cone of uncertainty.

-ABC News' Arielle Mitropoulos