Texas health officials announced a record 326 deaths on Wednesday.

The previous record was set on July 23 with 278 deaths, according to health data.

The state had 17,458 new daily cases and 11,992 hospitalizations, according to the health department. There are currently 602 intensive care unit beds remaining in Texas, health officials said.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey issued an executive order Wednesday to speed up access to the COVID-19 vaccine in the state.

The Arizona Department of Health Services will take the lead in the vaccination rollout under the order. The department is tasked with establishing and delivering a statewide implementation model.

Currently, Arizona counties are responsible for their own implementation plans.

"This is a health emergency, and we need all levels of government and our health system operating as such. Vaccines don't do any good sitting in a freezer," Ducey said in a statement.

The state health department will have the authority to establish private distribution sites, according to the executive order.

There is no statewide data for vaccinations. The executive order mandates that all counties display their vaccination numbers on their websites and share the info with the state health department.

Maricopa County, which leads the state with over 314,000 cases, has administered at least 36,000 doses as of Wednesday, according to the county's health department.

Los Angeles County officials said the National Guard will be deployed next week to assist the medical examiner's office with its growing number of COVID-related deaths.

Hilda Solis, the chair of Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, said six guardsmen will arrive on Jan. 4.

"They will be assisting until the end of January. It might be extended if warranted," she said at a news conference.

The deployment comes as the county recorded 274 additional deaths Wednesday, bringing the death toll to 10,056.

"The average number of deaths is about 150 people a day," Dr. Barbara Ferrer, the director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, said at a news conference.

ABC News' Michelle Mendez contributed to this report.

The new COVID-19 variant, which was confirmed in one person in Colorado on Tuesday, has now been detected in Southern California, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday.

Health officials in San Diego later said at a press conference the variant was found in their city, and the 30-year-old man had no history of travel, just like the person in Colorado. He has not been hospitalized, but contact tracing is underway and more cases are expected, officials said.

Dr. Anthony Fauci said to Newsom, "I am not surprised that you have a case and likely more cases in California and we will likely be seeing reports from other states."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it expects "there will be additional cases that are likely to be detected."

"Viruses constantly change through mutation, and new variants of a virus are expected to occur over time," the CDC said.

The variant doesn't appear to cause more severe disease or mortality, but does appear to have a higher transmission rate, the CDC said.

This comes as hard-hit California has reached a new record daily death toll with 432 fatalities reported in the last 24 hours, officials said Wednesday. This equals approximately one person dying every three minutes.

The Golden State has 20,612 COVID-19 patients in hospitals, including 4,389 people in intensive care units.

ICU capacity remains at 0% in the Southern California and San Joaquin Valley regions.

ABC News’ Jenna Harrison contributed to this report.

Public Health England does not recommend mixing COVID-19 vaccines from different suppliers, according to the agency's head of immunizations, Dr. Mary Ramsay.

"We do not recommend mixing the COVID-19 vaccines -- if your first dose is the Pfizer vaccine you should not be given the AstraZeneca vaccine for your second dose and vice versa," Ramsay said in a statement Saturday. "There may be extremely rare occasions where the same vaccine is not available, or where it is not known what vaccine the patient received. Every effort should be made to give them the same vaccine, but where this is not possible it is better to give a second dose of another vaccine than not at all."

The clarification comes amid questions over the British government's updated guidance on COVID-19 vaccines, which now says that if individuals who received the first shot go to an immunization site where that same vaccine is not available for a second shot, or if the first vaccine received is unknown, "it is reasonable to offer one dose of the locally available product to complete the schedule."

"This option is preferred if the individual is likely to be at immediate high risk or is considered unlikely to attend again," the guidance adds.

The guidance, which was updated Thursday, also notes that "there is no evidence on the interchangeability of the COVID-19 vaccines although studies are underway," and thus "every effort should be made to determine which vaccine the individual received and to complete with the same vaccine."

Next week, the United Kingdom is set to begin distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine developed by England's University of Oxford and manufactured by British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, after the drug was approved Wednesday for emergency supply. Another COVID-19 vaccine developed by U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech was approved in the U.K. on Dec. 2 and rollout began a week later.

ABC News' Zoe Magee contributed to this report.