Four healthcare groups again updated their guidance for hospitals to maintain essential surgeries during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The U.S. has reported more than 1 million new COVID-19 cases in each of the last two weeks — a first during the pandemic, reports The New York Times.

New York City will have COVID-19 checkpoints at certain key bridges and crossings ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday and will strictly enforce travel quarantine restrictions, New York City Sheriff Joseph Fucito said Nov. 24. 

Most people in the U.S. had not contracted COVID-19 as of September, according to a study on antibody prevalence published Nov. 24 in JAMA Internal Medicine.

As of Nov. 25, more than 257,000 people in the U.S. have died after contracting COVID-19, according to The New York Times.

New Mexico has the highest COVID-19 reproduction rate, while South Dakota has the lowest, according to rt.live. 

The CDC is considering a revision that would potentially cut its COVID-19 self-quarantine recommendation from 14 days to between seven and 10 days, according to a Nov. 24 Wall Street Journal report. 

President-elect Joe Biden's transition team received their first official Operation Warp Speed briefing from Rear Adm. Erica Schwartz, MD, deputy surgeon general, on Nov. 23, reports CNBC. 

The first known relatives to the pandemic virus outside of China have been found in Japan and Cambodia, which could potentially bring researchers a step closer to understanding the pandemic's origin, according to a Nov. 23 Nature report. 

After Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly ordered a mask mandate July 3, counties that adhered to the mandate experienced a decrease in the rate of COVID-19 spread, while counties that declined to implement the measure faced an increase, according to the CDC's Nov. 20 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 

Many hospitals across the country have issued calls for extra help from people in the medical field as they care for an influx of COVID-19 patients, and the addition of accelerated nursing programs at Xavier University in Cincinnati is coinciding with these shortages, reports local ABC affiliate WEWS. 

Below are 12 hospitals or health systems that recently posted job listings seeking chief medical officers.

Some New York City residents are paying other people to wait in long lines for them at COVID-19 testing sites amid an increase in testing demand ahead of the holidays, reports Business Insider.

San Antonio-based University Hospital performed the city's first double lung transplant for a COVID-19 patient at the end of October, reports the San Antonio Express-News.

Mounting evidence suggests that the SARS-CoV-2 virus underwent a mutation early in the pandemic that allowed the virus to spread more easily between people, according to The New York Times.

U.S. COVID-19 hospitalizations hit a record Nov. 23, with 85,836 patients hospitalized, according to data from The COVID-19 Tracking Project.  

Sanford Health is banning fans from attending a college basketball tournament it is sponsoring this week in Sioux Falls, S.D.

Texas has the most COVID-19 patients hospitalized in the U.S., according to the COVID Tracking Project. 

North Dakota has the most confirmed COVID-19 cases per 100,000 population of all U.S. states, while Vermont has the fewest, according to an analysis by The New York Times.

South Bend, Ind.-based Beacon Health System had one of its hospitals report 27 COVID-19-related deaths so far this month, a grim record it hasn't faced in earlier virus stages. Now, the health system is concerned some of their hospitals might run out of morgue space and put in a request for a morgue truck, reports local CBS affiliate WSBT.