Forecast models used by the CDC suggest that daily COVID-19 fatalities will finally begin to fall in the U.S. in the weeks to come.

The ensemble model estimates that only eight states have a greater than 50% chance of having more deaths over the next two weeks compared to the past two weeks, and two states and territories have a greater than 75% chance of seeing an increase.

The models predict the U.S. death toll will be at approximately 968,000 by March 12.

The CDC obtains the forecasts from the COVID-19 Forecast Hub at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where a team monitors and combines forecasting models from the nation’s top researchers. The team then creates an ensemble -- displayed like a hurricane forecast spaghetti plot -- usually with a wide cone of uncertainty.

-ABC News' Arielle Mitropoulos

The U.S. daily case rate has dropped to 144,000 -- an 81% drop since the peak about one month ago, according to federal data.

But experts continue to caution that the pandemic is not over, with the country reporting millions of new cases every week and 97% of counties still reporting high transmission. Experts also point out that many Americans are taking at-home tests and not submitting their results, so case totals may be higher than reported.

Deaths -- a lagging indicator -- remain high.

The U.S. is reporting an average of 2,200 lives lost to COVID-19 each day.

Fifteen states are reporting at least a 10% increase in daily death rates over the last week: Alaska, Alabama, Arizona, California, Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Vermont and West Virginia.

-ABC News' Arielle Mitropoulos

A new report from the United Kingdom's public health agency highlights mounting evidence that getting vaccinated can significantly reduce the risk of developing long COVID. 

Most people recover fully from COVID-19 but some experience symptoms like fatigue, shortness of breath and brain fog for months after infection.

The U.K. report summarizes the results of 15 previously published studies on long COVID from around the world. Collectively, these studies suggest that people who have been vaccinated are far less likely to develop long COVID.

-ABC News' Arielle Mitropoulos, Sony Salzman

The global number of newly confirmed COVID-19 cases fell by 19% during the week ending on Feb. 13, compared to the previous week, according to a weekly epidemiological update released Tuesday by the World Health Organization.

Meanwhile, the number of newly recorded deaths from the disease that week remained similar to that of the previous week. Just over 16 million new cases and just under 75,000 new fatalities were reported worldwide during the week of Feb. 7 to Feb. 13, the WHO said.

All WHO regions reported decreases in the number of weekly cases except for the Western Pacific region, which reported an increase of 19%. The number of new weekly deaths increased in the Eastern Mediterranean region, the Western Pacific region, the African region and the region of the Americas, while it remained similar to that of the previous week in the European region and decreased in the Southeast Asia region, according to the WHO.

A new study finds that people who survived COVID-19 during the first few months of the pandemic had a significantly higher risk of developing mental health disorders, including opioid use disorder, in the year after their COVID-19 diagnosis.

The study, published in The BMJ medical journal, evaluated medical records of nearly 154,000 COVID-19 patients in the Veterans Health Administration, comparing their experiences to a similar group of people that didn't have COVID-19.

After recovering from COVID-19, people with no prior history of mental illness were more likely to develop anxiety, depression, opioid use disorder, neurocognitive decline, and sleep disorders.

In an accompanying editorial, one of the lead researchers of the study argued that the mental health consequences of COVID-19 should be treated seriously and society shouldn't "gaslight or dismiss long covid as a psychosomatic condition."

The study only looked at people who survived COVID-19 from March 2020 to Jan. 2021 -- before vaccines were widely available. It's not clear if these findings apply to people diagnosed with COVID-19 more recently.

-ABC News' Sony Salzman, Arielle Mitropoulos