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

A Florida utility company asked Orlando residents to limit their water usage as liquid oxygen, which is used to treat COVID patients as well as help purify and clean water, is in short supply amid record COVID-19 hospitalizations.

Orlando Utilities Commission asked residents to limit watering their lawns "immediately" in a statement posted to Twitter Friday afternoon.

"A regional shortage of liquid oxygen linked to the surge of COVID-19 hospitalizations is impacting OUC's ability to treat drinking water," the company said.

The company said it needs to conserve up to half the water used daily until supplies return to normal while asking people to limit their non-critical water usage for at least two weeks.

"If OUC's liquid oxygen supplies continue to be depleted and water usage isn't reduced, water quality may be impacted," the company said in an update on its website.

OUC provides water service to about 140,000 customers, according to Orlando ABC affiliate WFTV.

The Florida Hospital Association reported a record 16,973 COVID-19 hospitalizations on Thursday. More than half of adults in intensive care units have COVID-19, it said.