The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the U.S. set another daily record for new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday with nearly 490,000.

The CDC's COVID Data Tracker reports that the U.S. recorded 486,428 cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, besting the previous daily record set on Monday.

The CDC says the U.S. has recorded at least 400,000 new cases of COVID-19 every day since Monday.

For the last seven days, the U.S. has averaged more than 316,000 new cases a day, the highest recorded level since the start of the pandemic.

The actual number of people who contracted COVID-19 in the U.S. is likely higher because not everyone who contracts the virus will seek out a test or report an at-home positive test.

The surge in cases comes as the highly contagious omicron variant of COVID-19 spreads rapidly throughout the country. Earlier this week, health officials said that while the newly-discovered strain is highly infectious, all signs point to it causing less severe disease than past strains.

The increase in new cases has not yet led to a rise in deaths, which slightly decreased in the past week. The CDC adds that there was only a slight increase in new hospitalizations from COVID-19 in the past week.

Surges in hospitalizations and deaths typically lag behind surges in new cases. While White House medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci expects both to rise in the weeks ahead, the nature of omicron may cause a less severe spike.

"That pattern in the disparity between cases and hospitalizations strongly suggests that there will be a lower hospitalization-to-case ratio when the situation becomes more clear," Fauci said Wednesday.

Fauci also warned that Americans must stay vigilant, as the highly transmissible nature of omicron could cause health care systems in some areas to be overwhelmed, particularly in areas where vaccination rates are low.

FRANKFORT, Ky. — At his final COVID-19 briefing of 2020, Gov. Andy Beshear again asked Kentuckians to keep their New Year's celebrations small, especially as the state is seeing the number of new coronavirus cases decreasing.

“2021 is the year we’re going to beat COVID-19, but to do that, I need everybody -- everybody -- to keep their New Year’s Eve gathering small,” he said Tuesday.

Beshear announced that he has renewed Kentucky’s mask mandate for another 30 days effective Jan. 2, and he also extended Kentucky’s eviction moratorium through Jan. 31.

"I need people to try, for them to do their duty. I need business owners to enforce this (mask mandate). Restaurants and bars, part of being able to operate in a pandemic that spreads when people take their masks off. Is to make people wear them every moment they're not eating or drinking," Beshear said.

A third order allowing pharmacists to dispense emergency refills of up to a 30-day supply of non-scheduled medications was also extended.

The governor reported 2,990 new cases, down from last week, and 31 coronavirus-related deaths on Tuesday, including an 88-year-old woman from Boone County. Beshear said the higher number of deaths lag behind the case numbers from exponential case growth seen in late fall.

Since March, 261,492 COVID-19 cases and 2,594 virus-related deaths have been reported in Kentucky.

Hospitalizations increased Tuesday, with 1,635 Kentuckians currently hospitalized for COVID-19, 380 people in intensive care units and 211 on ventilators.

Kentucky's COVID-19 test positivity rate rose slightly to 8.41% on Tuesday. The state's fatality rate, the proportion of people who die out of people who test positive for the virus, hovers at 0.99%.

Using the state's contact tracing database, NKY Health reports 2,317 active coronavirus cases in Boone, Campbell, Grant and Kenton counties, and 19,915 people have recovered from the virus as of Tuesday. Since the pandemic began, 165 Northern Kentuckians have died from the virus.

Federal relief coming to KY

The latest federal COVID-19 relief bill includes $600 payments to individuals, equating to roughly $2.2 billion for Kentuckians. If Congress's latest effort to secure $2,000 payments for individuals is approved, Beshear said that could send about $5 billion more to Kentucky residents.

Beshear said nearly $297 million is expected for eviction relief and utility relief. Eligible unemployed Kentuckians can expect an additional $300 per week assistance for 11 weeks, about $489 million total.

The relief bill also includes education, transportation, and family and senior program funding. There is no timeline yet for distributing payments to individuals or the state receiving these funds.

"We hope while there will be a lot of use this year, that we'll see significant dollars to remediation," Beshear said. "Catching kids up that have fallen behind during the pandemic."

Who gets the COVID-19 vaccine next?

After long-term care residents and healthcare workers, Kentucky plans to give COVID-19 vaccines to people age 70 and older, first responders and K-12 school personnel possibly starting in early February.

"Phase 1a" (healthcare workers, long-term care residents and staff) will end and "Phase 1b" (people over 70, first responders, K-12 personnel) could begin around Feb. 1, Beshear said.

Phase 1b also includes police officers and firefighters, while most emergency medical responders will already be vaccinated in the first phase. K-12 school personnel includes those who come in contact with students or school buildings. Off-site or administration personnel will have to wait to receive a COVID-19 vaccine.

Kentucky expects to receive roughly 202,000 doses of Pfizer and Moderna's COVID-19 vaccines by the end of December, with just under 54,000 expected to arrive the first week of January. Nearly 29,000 doses have already been administered in hospitals and long-term care centers, and 40 more facilities will receive some amount of vaccines by the end of this week.

For questions on COVID-19 vaccines and their distribution, call Kentucky's 24-hour hotline at (800) 722-5725 or visit Kentucky's vaccine webpage.

Where to get tested for free in NKY

St. Elizabeth Healthcare and Covington's Gravity Diagnostics offer free, appointment-only drive-thru testing at 25 Atlantic Ave in Erlanger, the former Toyota HQ building off Mineola Pike.

The site is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. You will be able to collect your own sample without leaving your vehicle and receive results within three to five days.

Additionally, appointment-only drive-up testing is available through St. E at 7200 Alexandria Pike, Alexandria. The free testing site is open on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Schedule an appointment at those sites online at www.stelizabeth.com/covid-testing. To find all coronavirus testing locations near you, click here.

Watch a replay of the briefing in the player below:

A year ago, it was hard to imagine that 100,000 Americans would become infected with the coronavirus — let alone see that many infections in a single day. But after a ghastly winter, the fact that infection totals have fallen under that threshold is a welcome sight.

For the first time in more than three months, the seven-day rolling average of new COVID-19 cases reported each day in the U.S. has dipped below 100,000.

On Friday, the COVID Tracking Report noted that the seven day average of new COVID-19 cases came in at 97,131 — marking the first time since Nov. 3 that the figure had totaled less than 100,000 new cases a day.

The U.S. had averaged at least 100,000 new cases of COVID-19 each day for exactly 100 days.

Cases of COVID-19 have been on a steady decline since peaking at nearly 250,000 a day in mid-January. That surge in cases was likely facilitated by a rise in travel for winter Holidays.

The decline in new cases has also mirrored a drop in hospitalizations linked to the virus. The COVID Tracking Project reports that about 67,000 people are currently fighting the virus in a hospital — a number that is about half of a peak of 132,000 in early January.

Deaths linked to the virus are also on the decline. That decline will likely accelerate in the weeks to come, as trends in deaths typically follow behind trends in new cases and hospitalizations.

The decline has likely been facilitated by federal and local governments’ vaccination push. Bloomberg reports that as of Sunday, the U.S. had administered 53.8 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.

But while COVID-19 cases continue to plummet, the rate of spread is still historically high in the U.S. The current seven-day average of 90,000 new cases a day still ranks higher than the surges the U.S. experienced in the spring and summer of 2020.

As of Monday morning, 27.6 million Americans had contracted COVID-19 and more than 485,000 people have died after contracting the virus, according to Johns Hopkins University.