Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont announced new COVID-19 vaccine requirements for state employees Thursday.

State employees in hospital facilities will be required to get vaccinated, while all other state employees, K-12 teachers and staff and early childhood staff will need to get tested weekly if they are not vaccinated, he said.

The requirements go into effect Sept. 27 and are on top of a previously announced vaccine mandate for long-term care employees.

"We've done very well, thank you Connecticut, in terms of people getting vaccinated," Lamont said at a press briefing. "We've got to do better."

More than 74% of Connecticut residents ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.

Five states have fewer than 10% of their intensive care unit beds available, according to federal data.

Alabama has reached 100% ICU capacity, while Georgia is at 94% capacity, Florida at 93.18%, Mississippi at 93.01% and Texas at 92.72%, according to the latest data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Nationwide, nearly 78% of staffed adult ICU beds are occupied, according to HHS, as the U.S. continues to experience its steepest increase in COVID-19-related hospitalizations since the winter of 2020. There are nearly 93,000 patients now hospitalized across the country with COVID-19, according to federal data.

Overnight, the U.S. recorded its fourth day with more than 140,000 new COVID-19 cases in the last seven days. The country's new case average has now surged to 130,000, up 13.2% in the last week, an ABC News analysis found.

-ABC News' Arielle Mitropoulos

More than 1 million COVID-19 vaccine doses were administered in the past 24 hours, including 562,000 first doses, a White House official confirmed to ABC News Thursday.

It's the first time 1 million doses in a single day have been logged in close to seven weeks, the official added, "a 31% week-over-week increase in the daily average of people completing their vaccine series."

-ABC News' Justin Gomez

The United States' early vaccine program likely helped prevent nearly 140,000 deaths during the first five months that shots were available, according to research published in the journal Health Affairs Wednesday.

Death reduction differed by state. New York saw the greatest reduction in COVID-19 deaths, while Hawaii saw the smallest benefit. "Overall, our analysis suggests that the early COVID-19 vaccination campaign was associated with reductions in COVID-19 deaths," the researchers wrote.

-ABC News' Eric Strauss

U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy announced at Wednesday's White House briefing, "Having reviewed the most current data, it is now our clinical judgment that the time to lay out a plan for COVID-19 boosters is now."

Murthy said protection against mild disease has decreased, likely a combination of waning vaccine protection over time and the strength of the delta variant, and that the administration is "concerned" that protection could continue to erode.

"Even though this new data affirms that vaccine protection remains high against the worst outcomes of COVID, we are concerned that this pattern of decline we're seeing will continue in the months ahead, which could lead to reduced protection against severe disease, hospitalization and death," Murthy said.

"That is why, today, we are announcing our plan to stay ahead of this virus by being prepared to offer COVID-19 booster shots to fully vaccinated adults 18 years and older," Murthy said. "They would be eligible for their booster shot eight months after receiving their second dose of the Pfizer or Modern mRNA vaccines."

The boosters are set to begin Sept. 20, but Murthy emphasized that this is pending FDA authorization and also reiterated that does not yet apply to J&J recipients.

-ABC News' Cheyenne Haslet