Coronavirus updates: State reports over 49,000 new cases, 468 new deaths

New York City’s police commissioner, Dermot Shea, has tested positive for COVID-19 and is “doing well,” NYPD spokesman Rich Esposito told ABC News.

Shea is at home and “running the department remotely,” he said.

Esposito said the commissioner regularly attends functions and is in close contact with people all the time. 

“He takes extensive precautions, but the COVID rate is increasing in the city,” he said.

So far this month, 463 NYPD members have tested positive for COVID-19. The police union and the mayor have been pushing the governor to allow police officers to get earlier access to the vaccine, calling it a matter of public safety.

ABC News' Aaron Katersky contributed to this report.

World Health Organization experts said the administration of the two doses of the Pfizer vaccine can be extended to up to six weeks apart, The Associated Press reported.

It is still recommended that the doses be administered 21 to 28 days apart.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has declared a “major incident” as the virus's spread threatens to overwhelm the city's hospitals.

One in 30 Londoners now has COVID-19, the mayor said.

The city has 7,034 people currently hospitalized -- a 35% increase from the April peak.

The number of people in hospitals jumped by 27% from Dec. 30 to Jan. 6, Khan said.

The London Ambulance Service is now taking up to 8,000 calls per day, when an average day would bring 5,500 calls.

“The stark reality is that we will run out of beds for patients in the next couple of weeks unless the spread of the virus slows down drastically,” Khan said. “We are declaring a major incident because the threat this virus poses to our city is at crisis point. If we do not take immediate action now, our NHS could be overwhelmed and more people will die.”

Just as the U.S. hit its deadliest day since the start of the pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, told NPR that it may only get worse.

In an audio interview Thursday, Fauci was asked if we should expect the death toll to keep rising.

"I believe, unfortunately, that it will," he said. "As we get into the next couple of weeks in January, that likely will be a reflection of the holiday season travel and the congregate settings that usually take place socially during that period of time."

He added that because so many Americans chose to attend get-togethers during the holiday season, he and other experts believe "things will get worse as we get into January."

As of now, more than 360,000 Americans have died of COVID-19.

"Hopefully, if we really accelerate our public health measures during that period of time, we'll be able to blunt that acceleration," Fauci said. "But that's going to really require people concentrating very, very intensively on doing the kinds of public health measures that we talk about all the time. Now's not the time to pull back on this."