COVID-19 updates: More than 10,000 new deaths reported in US in 1 week

Two dozen state attorneys general are threatening legal action against the federal government over a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for private businesses.

A week after President Joe Biden announced that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration will create a rule that will require roughly 80 million workers nationwide to be vaccinated or undergo weekly testing, 24 Republican state attorneys general warned in a letter addressed to the president that they "will seek every available legal option" if the mandate is implemented.  

The letter, which called the plan "disastrous and counterproductive" and debated its legality, was signed by the attorneys general of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.

Earlier this week, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy defended Biden's vaccine plan in an interview with "This Week" anchor George Stephanopoulos.

"The requirements that he announced are not sweeping requirements for the entire nation," Murthy said. "These are focused on areas where the federal government has legal authority to act."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s weekly ensemble forecast, an average of several models, predicts that the number of new daily hospital admissions will likely drop.

The ensemble forecast predicts "5,000 to 15,300 new confirmed COVID-19 hospital admissions likely reported on October 11." The current seven-day average is 11,165 new hospitalizations per day.

-ABC News' Brian Hartman

In an open letter, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla is making the case for his company's vaccine booster shot, one day before an FDA advisory committee meets to debate and vote on the issue. 

Bourla underscored the "strong immune response after the booster dose" and vowed that Pfizer has "stayed true to our commitment of full transparency without selectively cherry-picking data."  

Bourla also addressed international concerns over boosters for all potentially detracting from access to first doses in developing countries. 

"Some people and organizations have raised concerns that the approval of boosters will divert doses dedicated to the low- and middle-income countries and redirect them to the high-income countries. And they use this argument to claim that boosters should not be approved. I disagree," Bourla wrote.  

"No commitments already made by Pfizer to a country will change if boosters are approved," he wrote. 

-ABC News' Sasha Pezenik

The U.S. reported a staggering 2,000 COVID-19 related fatalities overnight, marking the highest single-day death total in nearly seven months, according to federal data. Although that large number could be partially due to data backlogs, it's still significant given that the pandemic has been ongoing for 18 months.

In the last five weeks, the U.S. has not seen a single day with less than 100,000 new cases, according to federal data. This is a massive step back in the fight against COVID-19; between Feb. 7 and July 29, 2021, there was never a day with 100,000 or more new cases.

Tennessee has the country's highest case rate followed by West Virginia, Wyoming, South Carolina, Alaska, Montana and Kentucky.

Nine states now have more patients in hospitals than at any point in the pandemic: Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Washington and West Virginia.

-ABC News' Arielle Mitropoulos