NY health provider may have fraudulently obtained COVID-19 vaccine

One day into the NBA's new season, the league announced that a game has been postponed due to COVID-19 related issues.

The game between the Oklahoma City Thunder and Houston Rockets was put on hold after three Rockets players tested positive or inconclusive, according to the league. Four other players are quarantining following contact tracing procedures, the NBA said.

"Additionally, James Harden is unavailable due to a violation of the Health and Safety Protocols. All other Rockets players were tested again today, and all returned negative results," the league said in a statement.

One other player was unavailable due to an injury and the Rockets did not have the mandatory eight-player roster to play the game, according to the NBA.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom urged residents to heed health warnings during the holiday season as the state's hospital system is pushed to the limit with COVID-19 patients.

He warned there could be multiple surges in cases "unless we are cautious and mindful about our travel plans this holiday season and about our proximity to people outside our households."

The number of the Intensive Care Unit patients is now 3,827, which was nearly double the 2,006 patients on Dec. 1, according to Newsom.

"On Monday, we were at 2.5% ICU availability and now as a state today, we are down to 1.1% ICU bed availability," he said.

"We had 8,517 people that were in our hospitals that tested positive for COVID-19 on Dec. 1st. Now 18,828 people are testing positive in just a three-week period," Newsom added.

-ABC News' Cammeron Parish contributed to this report

The new COVID-19 variant in the United Kingdom has likely infected tens of thousands of people, Jeffrey Barrett, director of the COVID-19 Genomics Initiative at the U.K. Wellcome Sanger Institute, said at a virtual Q&A hosted by the World Health Organization.

While there are just over 3,000 people who have the full genome sequence confirmed for the variant, only a small fraction of cases are sequenced, he said.

There’s no evidence the new variant is more deadly and it’s highly likely the vaccine will still work, officials said.

ABC News’ Sony Salzman contributed to this report.

Thursday, Dec. 24, Dr. Anthony Fauci’s 80th birthday, will be "Dr. Anthony S. Fauci" day in Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser announced Wednesday.

"We are incredibly proud to count Dr. Fauci among the many DC residents who are sacrificing so much to keep our communities healthy and safe,” Bowser tweeted.