The national test-positivity rate hit 10.2% in the past week, according to an internal Health and Human Services memo obtained by ABC News Friday night.

That was up from 8% in week-to-week comparisons.

Fifty-one states and territories are in an upward trajectory of new cases, while two jurisdictions are at a plateau and two are going down, the memo said.

The number of new cases confirmed from Nov. 6 to 12 increased 41.1% from the previous seven-day period, while deaths increased 29% during that same time frame, HHS found.

Across the country, 28% of hospitals have more than 80% of their ICU beds filled. That number was 17% to 18% during the summertime peak.

Hospitals in North Dakota are especially strained, as some have suspended elective surgeries as they report reaching or nearing 100% capacity.

Utah health care leaders have reported that many of the 16 referral hospitals in the state that have the capability to treat severely ill patients are full or nearly full, according to the memo.

In South Dakota, the seven-day COVID-19 hospitalization rate continued to rise steeply, reaching a high of 62.6 per 100,000 population on Nov. 10, HHS said.

ABC News Josh Margolin contributed to this report.

The New Mexico Supreme Court will pause criminal and civil jury trials through the end of 2020, officials announced Friday.

An order issued by the court will suspend jury trials set to begin on or after Nov. 16 to next year. Trials currently underway are not affected.  

New Mexico’s appellate, district, metropolitan and magistrate courts will also remain open.

The order came hours after Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced that the state will shelter in place for two weeks starting on Monday. Nonessential businesses will have to close, and people are advised to leave their homes only for essential trips.

The shelter-in-place measure does not apply to court operations, but the Supreme Court's precautions "will reduce the number of people who need to come to a courthouse at a time when the state has tightened public health order restrictions on New Mexicans because of a spike in COVID-19," Chief Justice Michael E. Vigil said in a statement.

ABC News' Michelle Mendez and Cherise Rudy contributed to this report.

Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak has tested positive for COVID-19, he announced Friday afternoon.

"As part of a regular testing protocol, I underwent routine COVID-19 testing on Friday, November 13 in Carson City. A rapid test provided a positive result," he wrote on Twitter.

Sisolak said he is currently experiencing no symptoms, though earlier in the week he "felt a little fatigue, which I attributed to my demanding schedule."

The Democratic governor, 66, previously tested negative on Nov. 2 and Nov. 6, he said.

He is still awaiting results from a PCR test, which is more accurate than a rapid test.

"Consistent with guidelines from the CDC and the DHHS, I am isolating and continuing to monitor my symptoms," Sisolak said. "All public events have been canceled at this time. I remain in constant contact with my staff and my Cabinet and the work of the Governor’s Office will continue remotely."

New York state reported more than 5,000 new COVID-19 cases for the first time since late April, when the state was ground zero for the pandemic. 

On Thursday, 5,401 people tested positive for COVID-19, Gov. Andrew Cuomo's office announced. A record 203,721 tests were reported, for a positivity rate of 2.65% -- one of the lowest in the nation, the governor said.

"The bad news is we are in the midst of a sea of COVID rising around us," Cuomo said in a statement.

He warned that the state may need to take additional steps to combat the spread of the virus as the holiday season approaches and travel will likely increase.

ABC News' Joshua Hoyos contributed to this report.

As COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations soar to record rates across the United States, the nation's top expert on infectious diseases is urging Americans to double down on fundamental public health measures and "hang in there" until a vaccine becomes widely available.

"Help is really on the way," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told ABC News' Robin Roberts in an interview Thursday on "Good Morning America."

"The cavalry is coming here. Vaccines are going to have a major positive impact," he added. "They're going to start being implemented and deployed in December. And as we start getting into the early part of the year -- it's going to be January, February, March -- more and more and more people are going to be able to be vaccinated. So if we could just hang in there, do the public health measures that we're talking about, we're going to get this under control -- I promise you."

Those measures include wearing face masks, maintaining physical distances, avoiding crowds and washing hands as often as possible.

"They sound very simple and, given the really very difficult challenge we're facing, one might think that that doesn't make any difference. It really does," Fauci said.

Fauci, a key member of the current White House coronavirus task force, said health care providers and those who are deemed most at-risk will have priority access to a COVID-19 vaccine, but that "ordinary" citizens should be able to get it in the second quarter of next year.

With November on pace to be America's worst month yet fighting the coronavirus pandemic, Fauci admitted he didn't know whether the nation was headed for a lockdown but said "we would like to stay away from that."

"Hopefully we won't have to do that," he added. "The best opposite strategy to locking down is to intensify the public health measures short of locking down. So if you could do that well, you don't have to take that step that people are trying to avoid, which has so many implications both psychologically and economically. We'd like not to do that."

When asked about the political limbo in the wake of the presidential election, Fauci said, "Certainly it's having no impact negatively on our ability as well as our activity in developing vaccines and developing counter measures."

"It is still a major challenge," he added. "We're in a difficult situation and we just got to keep pushing."