The U.S. has surpassed 26 million COVID-19 cases and the pace of infections is increasing - but is also seeing a decrease in the number of hospitalizations.

In the first time in almost 60 days, COVID-19 hospitalizations in the country fell below 100,000, and last week - no states logged record hospitalization highs.

The last time that happened was Nov. 5.

These are some of the few positive developments as the pandemic continues taking its toll. For more than nine months, the people living at the Adrian Dominican Sisters Motherhouse in Michigan managed to keep the virus at bay.

But this month, despite maintaining strict safety protocols, it managed to make it onto the campus, infecting 48 sisters and killing nine.

The nuns are now among the over 438,000 Americans who have died from COVID-19.

This weekend, California became the second state to surpass 40,000 COVID-19 deaths - the first being New York.

Shots are going into arms, with nearly 60% of over 49 million distributed COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered as of Saturday, reports the CDC.

The U.S. has already detected highly contagious variants of COVID-19 first seen in the U.K., South Africa, and Brazil.

A new variation has shown up in California.

Dr. Paul Offit, who sits on the FDA's advisory committee, says there's still no sign that these variants are immune to the current generation of vaccines.

A new peer-reviewed study is suggesting children may be safer in school than staying home so long as centralized guidelines and improved testing from the federal government are made available.

Emergency room Dr. Darria Long and her colleagues at the University of Tennessee authored the study.

Doctors are predicting however that the next six to eight weeks are going to be very tough for the country, with another 100,000 to 150,000 deaths in that time period.