With nearly 104,000 hospitalized, U.S. hospitalizations are now at the highest point in more than seven months, according to federal data.

Alabama's ICUs remain 100% full while Georgia's ICUs are over 96% full, federal data show.

Nearly 1,000 COVID-19 deaths are now being reported in the U.S. each day, the highest average in more than five months.

-ABC News' Arielle Mitropoulos

Booster shots are beginning in France on Wednesday.

Eligible recipients include people over the age of 65 and people with underlying health conditions. They must be at least six months out
from their second Pfizer or Moderna shot.

Those who received the single-dose J&J vaccine are also eligible to receive an mRNA booster if at least four weeks have passed since they were vaccinated.

As of Tuesday, 65.6% of France's total population was fully vaccinated.

-ABC News' Ibtissem Guenfoud

Pfizer is launching a large clinical study for a new pill that it hopes could prevent worse symptoms for patients with mild COVID-19.

The first participant has now been dosed in this "pivotal Phase 2/3 clinical trial," Pfizer said.

Drugs like Remdesivir and Dexamethasone can help people recover faster, but those are only reserved for people who are extremely ill and in the hospital.

If proven effective, Pfizer will ask the FDA for authorization.

-ABC News' Sony Salzman

Virginia Tech says 134 students have been disenrolled after they didn't comply with COVID-19 vaccine requirements.

The university's roughly 37,000 students were required to submit vaccination documentation or receive a medical or religious exemption, Virginia Tech said.

"The university does not know whether any of these [134] students were not planning to return for reasons unrelated to the COVID-19 vaccine requirement," Virginia Tech said.

-ABC News' Chad Murray

A new study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that roughly 83% of blood donors in the nation have either been vaccinated against COVID-19 or were previously infected with the virus.

This, however, does not mean that more than 80% of Americans are immune from infection. That's because neither vaccination nor prior infection provides 100% protection -- antibodies are just one part of the overall immune response, and immunity wanes over time. The analysis also may overestimate the portion of people with antibodies because blood donors may be more likely to be vaccinated or have previously been infected.

The study, posted online Tuesday by JAMA Network Open, a monthly open access medical journal published by the American Medical Association, took a snapshot of the presence of antibodies from COVID-19 vaccination or prior infection in about 1.4 million donated blood samples from across the United States. The repeated cross-sectional analysis was conducted each month during July 2020 through May 2021, before delta became the predominant variant of the novel coronavirus in the U.S.

The study shows that the number of blood donors who tested positive for antibodies, indicating either vaccination or prior infection, has gone up over time, from 3.5% in July 2020 to 20.2% for infection-induced antibodies and 83.3% for both infection- and vaccine-induced antibodies in May 2021.

Being vaccinated offers better protection compared to prior infection, and it's recommended that people who have previously contracted COVID-19 should still get inoculated.

-ABC News' Katie Bosland and Sony Salzman