Despite a court ruling Friday ordering Florida to stop enforcing a ban on school mask mandates, the state's education commissioner has since told eight school districts that they must drop their mandates by Wednesday or potentially face sanctions.

The districts notified on Friday -- which include Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Orange -- adopted mask requirements this month but had yet to hear from the state about repercussions.

In letters sent to leaders of the eight districts, Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran said he was opening investigations and threatened to withhold the salaries of school board members if the districts didn't reverse their mandates by Wednesday.

Two other districts have already been sanctioned by the state board of education.

State officials have said they plan to appeal Friday's ruling "immediately."

-ABC News' Will McDuffie

As Florida continues to battle a surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations, 14 portable morgues are headed to central Florida hospitals.

ABC News confirmed the order with Lynne Drawdy, executive director of the Central Florida Disaster Medical Coalition, which is sending the coolers.

Each portable morgue can hold up to 12 bodies, Drawdy told ABC Orlando affiliate WFTV.

The coolers will go to hospitals across central Florida, as some have reached morgue capacity due to an influx of COVID-19 patients, and are expected to arrive by Monday, according to WFTV.

A new peer-reviewed study estimates that the delta variant doubles the risk of being hospitalized if you're unvaccinated compared to the alpha variant.

The study -- an analysis of more than 40,000 COVID-19 cases from the United Kingdom -- primarily included unvaccinated people, so the findings don't apply to vaccinated people with breakthrough infections.

Vaccines dramatically reduce the risk of hospitalization and death for both the alpha and delta variants.

-ABC News' Sony Salzman

Seven states, all in the South, have intensive care units over 90% full, according to federal data: Alabama (100%), Florida (94.98%), Georgia (94.68%), Louisiana (90.15%), Mississippi (92.07%), Oklahoma (91.68%), and Texas (93.86%).

The U.S. is continuing to experience its steepest and most significant increase in hospitalizations in seven months, according to federal data. On Wednesday alone, more than 12,800 patients were admitted to the hospital with COVID-19, marking the highest number of patients seeking care over the span of 24 hours since January.

-ABC News' Arielle Mitropoulos

A Tallahassee judge ruled Friday that Florida school boards can enact student mask mandates, going against Gov. Ron DeSantis, who in July issued an executive order that set off a public feud with school districts.

Judge John C. Cooper found that a blanket ban on face masks in schools "does not meet constitutional muster" and ordered the Florida Department of Education to stop enforcing a state rule that requires districts to allow parents to opt-out of mask mandates.

Cooper, over about two hours, picked apart the state's defense, saying the science presented during the weeklong trial did not support the state's argument against masking children.

Ten Florida school districts have adopted mask mandates for students this month. Two -- Broward and Alachua -- were sanctioned by the Florida commissioner of education, who said he would begin withholding the salaries of board members who voted to require masks.

DeSantis will "immediately appeal" the ruling, the governor's press secretary, Christina Pushaw, said in a statement. "This ruling was made with incoherent justifications, not based in science and facts," Pushaw said.

A spokesman for the Florida Department of Education said, "We are immensely disappointed that the ruling issued today by the Second Judicial Circuit discards the rule of law. This decision conflicts with basic and established rights of parents to make private health care and education decisions for children. ... We are committed to the fundamental rights of parents and will push forward on appeal to ensure that this foundation of democracy is upheld."

-ABC News' Will McDuffie