The Northeast and Midwest are seeing the largest jump in cases and hospitalizations, according to federal data.

Twenty-seven states have seen at least a 10% jump in daily cases over the last two weeks: Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, New York City, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont and Wisconsin.

Eighteen states have seen at least a 10% increase in hospital admissions over the last week: Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, South Dakota, Texas and Wisconsin.

-ABC News' Arielle Mitropoulos

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday signed legislation that prohibits private employer vaccine mandates and says employers that violate the ruling will be fined.

The legislation also states educational institutions can't require students to be vaccinated; school districts can't have face mask policies or quarantine healthy students; and families can "sue violating school districts."

"Nobody should lose their job due to heavy-handed COVID mandates," DeSantis, a Republican, said in a statement.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is calling on workers to head back to the office in the new year.

"How about this New Year's resolution: that in the days after New Year’s, that we say everybody back in the office. You can have a flex time, but we need you back, at least the majority of the week," Hochul told industry leaders at the Association for a Better New York breakfast.

Hochul also said she would be in Times Square on New Year's Eve.

Times Square is reopening this New Year's Eve after being closed last year due to the pandemic. Revelers must bring proof of full vaccination and a photo ID.

"I can't wait to put 2020 - 2021 behind us," the governor said.

-ABC News' Aaron Katersky

COVID-19 "is one of the top ten leading causes of death in children" and vaccines are a "safe and simple intervention" to significantly lower the risk of severe illness, emergency physician Dr. Leana Wen and professor of health policy and management at GW said at a National Press Foundation briefing Wednesday.

Dr. Sean O’Leary, vice chair of the committee on infectious diseases for the American Academy of Pediatrics, said he believes that the fear surrounding the vaccine is largely based on misinformation.

Both doctors also pointed to the problem of access to vaccines, with many Americans in rural areas living in “pharmacy deserts.”

“We should not assume that these people don’t want the vaccine. A lot of it is access,” Leary said.

Officials need to hold clinics in places like schools, Wen added.

-ABC News' Arielle Mitropoulos

Former Baltimore health commissioner Dr. Leana Wen said in an interview Monday hosted by the Bipartisan Policy Center that her family is rapid-testing on Thanksgiving because they're gathering indoors with multiple families and have young, unvaccinated children.

She said it was reasonable for families with immunocompromised members to continue to take precautions, like rapid test and gather outdoors.

"A family in which everybody is generally healthy and fully vaccinated might take very different types of risks than a family with unvaccinated young kids or elderly, immunocompromised family members," she said.

Dr. Jerome Adams, former Surgeon General under President Donald Trump, said to make sure all relatives are vaccinated and that no one has cold symptoms.

"Even if you're vaccinated, if you're coughing, if you're sneezing, if you've got symptoms, you still could be spreading the virus," he said.

Looking to the future, Dr. Anthony Fauci said, "If we can get most of the people who are eligible to be boosted, boostered, we can go a long way to make in 2022 much more of a normal year than what we've seen in 2021."

-ABC News' Cheyenne Haslett