Jonathan Greene, deputy assistant secretary for operations and resources at the Department of Health and Human Services, acknowledged in a briefing call that the agency is not able to provide the number of health care workers states are requesting.

HHS and FEMA have been "very judicious" in using and moving health care workers, providing 300 to 400 nationwide, which matches the number deployed during the first surge in the spring, Greene said. Fewer were deployed over the summer, mimicking the case curve.

About 3,100 can be deployed nationally, but Greene admitted the system is designed more for situations like hurricanes than for pandemics.

“It works less well when we're talking about a pandemic where everyone needs all of these providers all at once. And certainly when we activate and deploy these people and take them out of their full-time jobs and put them somewhere else, it reduces the capacity in the places where they come from,” he said.

Greene said the agency has encouraged the use of non-traditional health care providers in order "to bridge the gap."

ABC News' Sarah Kolinovsky contributed to this report.

Ellen DeGeneres said Thursday that she’s tested positive for COVID-19 and is “feeling fine.”

“Anyone who has been in close contact with me has been notified, and I am following all proper guidelines,” the talk show host said.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio unveiled his 2021 student achievement plan, which will focus on getting students caught up after, for some, 18 months of remote learning.

“Clearly there will be a COVID achievement gap and we have to close that COVID achievement gap,” the mayor said.

Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza said the plan is to: get a baseline of what ground was lost; increase the high-quality digital curriculum available for every single school; launch a one-stop digital learning hub; deepen professional development; expand Parent University (the "online learning and empowerment platform" for families); and confront the trauma and mental health crisis within schools.

ABC News' Aaron Katersky contributed to this report.

In South Korea, more than 3,000 COVID-19 patients were identified in the last week, and in the Seoul area, as of Wednesday 506 were unable to be taken to hospitals this week due to bed shortages, Yonhap reported. 

South Korea reported 682 new cases and eight more deaths on Thursday, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency reported.

The nation now has over 40,000 confirmed cases.

For the first time since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the United States is reporting an average of nearly 2,200 deaths from the disease per day, according to an ABC News analysis of data collected and published by The COVID Tracking Project.

The national seven-day average of COVID-19 deaths per day day is currently 2,171. That figure has increased by 139% in the past month.

Last week, there were nearly 15,000 fatalities from the disease recorded nationwide, including five days where the daily death toll surpassed the 2,000 mark. That's roughly equivalent to 88 COVID-19 deaths reported each hour.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has reported over 100,000 new cases of COVID-19 every day for more than a month straight, including three consecutive days where the daily count topped 200,000.

Just in the last month, the national seven-day average of daily new cases has doubled, now averaging 191,736 -- the highest it has been since the beginning of the pandemic.

There were 1,018,657 cases recorded nationwide in the first five days of December. To put that in perspective, it took nearly 100 days from the first recorded COVID-19 case in the U.S. for the country to surpass 1 million confirmed cases.

Hospitalizations continue to surge to unprecedented levels, with over 101,000 patients currently hopitalized with COVID-19 across the country -- a new national record.

In the past two months, current hospitalizations have more than tripled, increasing by 223%.

ABC News' Benjamin Bell, Brian Hartman, Kim Soorin and Arielle Mitropoulos contributed to this report.