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

Columbia University pediatrician Dr. Edith Bracho Sanchez spoke with ABC News' Linsey Davis about the importance of getting a COVID-19 vaccine during pregnancy and while nursing.

Recent health data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has shown that three out of four pregnant women in the U.S. are unvaccinated, and the numbers are lower for Black pregnant women, with nine out of 10 unvaccinated.

Sanchez, who is eight months pregnant and vaccinated, told ABC News that expecting mothers are more vulnerable to diseases and the current data shows the vaccines are safe for them.

"We now know from over close to 40,000 women that there is no increased risk of miscarriage of early delivery of your baby, which are the things that worry a lot of pregnant women," she said.

Sanchez said she did not hesitate to get her shots once she became eligible.

"I really, really hope that pregnant women out there hear this call and go ahead and get themselves this vaccine and protect themselves, their baby and their pregnancy," she said.