COVID-19 updates: US cases down nearly 25%

Following weeks of increasing infections, COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. are rising. The nation is now reporting nearly 2,000 new COVID-19-related deaths per day -- up by 30% in the last two weeks, according to federal data.

But there's continued evidence that the nation's most recent surge may be receding in many regions. Thirty-one states as well as Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico are now reporting decreasing or plateauing new case averages, according to federal data.

The only states with an increase in new cases are: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Idaho, Kentucky, Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

Nationwide, the U.S. is reporting an average of 716,000 new cases per day, down by about 10% in the last week.

However, case levels in the U.S. remain incredibly high. In the last seven days, the U.S. reported more than 5 million new cases. Only 1% of U.S. counties aren't reporting high transmission, according to federal data.

-ABC News' Arielle Mitropoulos

Former Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin has tested positive for COVID-19, a Manhattan federal court judge announced Monday, as her libel trial against the New York Times was about to begin.

“Since she has apparently tested positive three times I’m going to assume she’s positive,” Judge Jed Rakoff said. 

The libel case between Palin and the newspaper has now been delayed until Feb. 2.

Palin sued the New York Times after an editorial incorrectly linked her political rhetoric to the mass shooting that gravely injured Rep. Gabby Giffords. Palin is expected to testify. 

-ABC News' Aaron Katersky

Gen. Richard Clarke, the head of U.S. Special Operations Command, has tested positive for COVID-19 and is working from home, U.S. Special Operations Command spokesperson Col. Curt Kellogg said.

Clarke, who has been vaccinated and boosted, has "very mild symptoms," Kellogg said.

"Gen. Clarke has not been in the physical presence of senior DoD civilian leadership or members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff this month," Kellogg said.

-ABC News' Luis Martinez

The head of the World Health Organization warned Monday that although people across the globe must learn to live with COVID-19 "for the foreseeable future," we cannot "give this virus a free ride."

"There are different scenarios for how the pandemic could play out and how the acute phase could end," Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO’s director-general, said in opening remarks at an executive board meeting in Geneva. "But it's dangerous to assume that omicron will be the last variant or that we are in the endgame."

"On the contrary, globally, the conditions are ideal for more variants to emerge," he added.

Tedros listed a slew of both achievements and concerns in global health over the past year, including increasing access to medicines and health produces, the declining use of tobacco and the burden of anti-microbial resistance. But he said "ending the acute phase of the pandemic must remain our collective priority."

Tedros insisted that "we can end COVID-19 as a global health emergency, and we can do it this year," though he admitted "we have a long way to go." He said it requires meeting the WHO's target to vaccinate 70% of the population of each country against COVID-19 by the middle of this year, with a focus on people who are most at-risk, as well as boosting testing and sequencing rates to track the virus and its emerging variants more closely.

"We can only do this with engaged and empowered communities, sustained financing, a focus on equity, and research and innovation," he said. "Let me put it plainly: If the current funding model continues, WHO is being set up to fail. The paradigm shift in world health that is needed now must be matched by a paradigm shift in funding the world’s health organization."