The Norwegian Medicines Agency on Thursday reported a total of 29 people had suffered side effects, 13 of them fatal, according to The Associated Press. All the deaths occurred among patients in nursing homes and all were over the age of 80.

A spokesperson from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration told ABC News on Saturday regarding the deaths in Norway: "To date, we have not seen any new safety signals In the U.S. following administration of either authorized COVID-19 vaccine, and therefore do not currently plan to make any changes."

In the U.S. any reports of death following vaccination are "promptly and rigorously investigated" by the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the spokesperson said.

Texas' third case of the COVID-19 variant, B.1.1.7, the same variant discovered in the United Kingdom, has been found in Dallas, Dallas County Health and Human Services reported in a statement Saturday morning.

"The individual is a male resident of the City of Dallas in his 20’s, with no recent history of travel outside of the United States. Results of genetic sequencing this week showed that the infection was caused by the variant. This is the first known case of this variant in a Dallas County resident. The individual is stable and is in isolation. DCHHS epidemiologists are involved with the investigation in identifying and notifying close contacts," the statement read.

- ABC News' James Scholz

There are some encouraging signs in the latest COVID-19 data.

The seven-day averages for cases are declining throughout the U.S., according to The COVID Tracking Project.

The averages are down in all four regions that the tracker compares: Northeast, Midwest, South and West.

On a national level, it appears that COVID-19 hospitalizations are also on the decline, the tracker said. Though it noted that some areas are still seeing an "overwhelming" level of hospitalizations.

The U.S. reported 243,996 new cases, 3,679 new deaths and 127,235 currently hospitalizations on Friday, according to The COVID Tracking Project's tally.

President-elect Joe Biden laid out a five-point vaccination plan Friday that he promised would turn the public's "frustration into motivation" and meet his goal of getting 100 million shots into Americans' arms within his first 100 days in office.

The plan includes working with states to open up more priority groups for vaccination, mobilizing a larger workforce to administer vaccines and working directly with independent and chain pharmacies to distribute them. Biden's administration also plans to set up 100 federally funded vaccination centers in school gyms, sports stadiums and mobile clinics to help reach communities that have been hit hard by the virus.

"Equity is central to our COVID response," Biden said.

Scientists in Biden's administration, like the surgeon general, will speak directly to the American people, he added, and pledged to be transparent about "both the good news and the bad" when it came COVID-19 progress. "You’re entitled to know," he said.

Seychelles, an island nation of just under 100,000 people, has begun immunizing its population against COVID-19 with a vaccine developed by China’s state-owned pharmaceutical company, Sinopharm.

Seychelles President Wavel Ramkalawan became the first African head of state to receive the Sinopharm vaccine on Sunday, as the country officially launched a national COVID-19 immunization campaign -- the first in Africa to do so. The Seychelles Ministry of Health began administering the shot to priority groups on Monday, starting with health care professionals and other front-line workers, according to a press release from the president’s office.

Last month, China authorized Sinopharm's vaccine for general use after the company announced that preliminary data from late-stage trials had shown it to be 79.3% effective. The shot is administered in two doses.

The United Arab Emirates donated 50,000 doses of the Sinopharm vaccine to Seychelles. India offered 100,000 doses of another COVID-19 vaccine developed by England’s University of Oxford and British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, which are due to arrive in Seychelles at the end of the month, according to the president's office.

“With such a robust vaccination campaign, Seychelles aims to be the first country in the world to vaccinate at least 70% of its over 18 population,” Ramkalawan said in a statement Sunday. “From there, we will be able to declare Seychelles as being COVID safe. This will allow us to reopen our economy.”

Seychelles, an Indian Ocean archipelago located off the coast of East Africa, has reported 508 confirmed cases of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, including at least one death, according to the latest data from the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.