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.
Virgin Atlantic says it will require UK travelers to test negative before departure
A representative from Virgin Atlantic told ABC News it will implement a new protocol for United Kingdom travelers that mandates a COVID-19 test before boarding flights to the U.S.
"With the health and safety of our customers and people always our number one priority, we will require all travelers to present evidence of a negative LAMP or PCR COVID-19 test, taken up to 72 hours prior to departure, including on-site at the airport," the representative said in a statement.
The new requirement goes into effect on Dec. 24.
The change comes after New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo called on international airlines to test passengers for the coronavirus before getting on a plane to the U.S. A variant of the virus has been discovered in Britain and prompted several countries to suspend travel from the U.K.
-ABC News' Nate Luna contributed to this report.