New COVID-19 cases among children dropped last week for the first time since Thanksgiving, according to a new report by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association. About 808,000 children tested positive last week, down from a peak of 1,150,000 cases reported the week ending Jan. 20.

However, the organizations warn that pediatric cases remain "extremely high," still triple the peak level of the delta surge in the summer of 2021.

AAP and CHA noted there is an "urgent" need to collect more age-specific data to assess the severity of illness related to new variants as well as potential longer-term effects. The two organizations note in their report that a small percentage of pediatric cases have resulted in hospitalization and death.

More than 28 million eligible children remain completely unvaccinated, according to federal and census data.

-ABC News' Arielle Mitropoulos

Novavax on Monday submitted a request to the FDA for emergency use authorization for its COVID-19 vaccine.

Novavax uses a more traditional protein-based vaccine platform, which is different from Pfizer and Modena’s mRNA technology and Johnson & Johnson's viral vector technology.

Novavax's vaccine exposes a person to a lab-based piece of coronavirus to build immunity.

Novavax's studies -- conducted before the omicron variant -- showed an approximately 90% efficacy.

Novavax was one of the early contenders for a COVID-19 vaccine; Operation Warp Speed allocated $1.6 billion for 100 million doses if the vaccine was authorized by the FDA.

-ABC News' Eric M. Strauss

After weeks of surging cases, many U.S. states continue to see impressive declines in their national case averages.

The U.S. is reporting an average of about 543,000 new cases per day, down by about 32.2% in the last two weeks, according to federal data. Two weeks ago the nation was reporting more than 800,000 new cases every day.

Only five states are seeing at least a 10% increase in new cases: Idaho, Maine, Minnesota, Montana and Washington.

But case levels still remain much higher than the nation's previous surges. Experts point out that many Americans who are taking at-home tests are not submitting their results, and thus, case totals may be higher than reported.

Alaska now leads the nation in new cases per capita followed by Washington state, Kentucky and Oklahoma, according to federal data.

-ABC News' Arielle Mitropoulos

Moderna has now received full FDA approval for its COVID-19 vaccine, the second vaccine maker to be granted full approval, after Pfizer.

All three vaccines currently available in the U.S. were granted emergency authorization based on large clinical studies and at least two months of safety data.

Moderna said the full approval was "based on a comprehensive submission package including efficacy and safety data approximately six months after second dose."

-ABC News' Sony Salzman

Despite the emergence of the omicron variant and increased concerns over waning vaccine immunity, new data from the CDC shows that vaccines are still dramatically reducing the risk of testing positive, requiring hospitalization, or dying of COVID-19.

In December, unvaccinated adults had a three times greater risk of testing positive for COVID-19, compared to vaccinated individuals. Previously reported data, published last month, showed that the unvaccinated were 15 times more likely to die from COVID-19 in November.

Similarly, in December, unvaccinated adults were five times more likely to test positive, compared to fully vaccinated and boosted Americans.

Unvaccinated adults, ages 30 to 49 years old, also saw the highest case-incidence rate while omicron was surging.

-ABC News' Arielle Mitropoulos, Cheyenne Haslett