New York health provider may have fraudulently obtained COVID-19 vaccine
The vaccine was then given to members of the public not yet eligible.
A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now infected more than 80.2 million people worldwide and killed over 1.7 million of them, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
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Only 1.1% of ICU beds available in California, Newsom says
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
Likely ‘tens of thousands’ with new variant in UK
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.
'Fauci Day' announced in DC
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.
California reports 39,069 daily cases
Hard-hit California reported 39,069 daily cases on Wednesday -- a 2% increase from Tuesday.
California’s daily cases are more than the daily cases in the United Kingdom, Russia, India, Italy and France, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
California is recording more than twice as many daily cases than the next hardest-hit states. Tennessee recorded 16,036 cases Tuesday and Texas had 16,607 cases, according to Johns Hopkins.
ABC News’ Bonnie Mclean contributed to this report.
803,000 Americans filed jobless claims last week
Another 803,000 workers lost their jobs and filed for unemployment insurance last week as the pandemic rages, the U.S. Department of Labor said Wednesday.
The latest figure is slightly less than last week’s figure, but still remains well above pre-pandemic levels.
The DOL also said Wednesday that some 20.3 million people were still receiving some form of unemployment benefits through all government programs as of the week ending Dec. 5. That figure was 1.7 million for the comparable week in 2019.
The latest economic data from the DOL also comes as the COVID-19 relief package, which includes extended unemployment benefits, faces a new hurdle as President Donald Trump has indicated he will not sign the bill yet.
The unemployment rate in the U.S. was 6.7% last month, according to the DOL's most recent employment situation report. In February, prior to the pandemic, the unemployment rate was 3.5%.
-ABC News’ Catherine Thorbecke contributed to this report.