FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn on Saturday denied reports he was threatened with firing.

Sources familiar with the matter told ABC News that in a Friday phone call, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows suggested to Hahn that his job could be on the line if his agency didn’t authorize emergency use of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine by the end of the day.

“Representations in the press that I was threatened to be fired if we didn’t get it done by a certain date is inaccurate,” Hahn told reporters Saturday.

Hahn said he would “absolutely” take the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. He said it was authorized late Friday because science and data said it was ready, not because of “any other external pressure.”

ABC News’ Anne Flaherty contributed to this report.

A record number of people -- 3,309 -- died from COVID-19 Friday, according to new data from Johns Hopkins University.

Friday's record shattered the previous single-day record death toll of 3,124 which was set Wednesday.

An outbreak of COVID-19, resulting in 77 positive cases, has been traced to a youth basketball tournament held last month in California's Santa Clara County, public health officials said Friday.

At the tournament, held Nov. 7 and 8 at Courtside Basketball Center in Placer County, were 39 middle school and high school players, three coaches and 35 “additional contacts.”

Officials said it violated local and state orders for youth sports put in place during the coronavirus pandemic.

Another 17 cases outside the county have also been traced to the event, officials said in a news release.

“This outbreak is a troubling reminder that the widespread prevalence of COVID-19 in our community threatens all of us, and does not limit itself to geographic boundaries,” Dr. Monika Roy, Santa Clara County’s assistant public health officer, said in a statement.

“Public Health orders, directives, and guidance around contact sports and sporting events are in place for a reason. The risk of transmission in these settings can easily result in community spread that threatens the most vulnerable among us.”

The California Department of Public Health is investigating the incident, according to the news release, and Courtside’s website said the center is closed until further notice “out of precaution with the statewide lockdown and for the safety of all.”

The outbreak comes as California is seeing record numbers of COVID-19 cases during the holiday season.

FedEx took to Twitter Friday night to announce that it's on track to start delivering Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine, which was given emergency use authorization by the Food and Drug Administration Friday.

“We’re in motion to begin delivering our first shipment of COVID-19 vaccines from @pfizer -@BioNTech_Group to communities across the U.S.,"FedEx tweeted.

In a press release, the transportation company -- which has more than 90 cold chain facilities across five continents -- said it will use its FedEx Priority Overnight service to get vaccines to dosing centers around the country, and soon, the world.

"Vaccine distribution will be balanced among major cargo carriers, and FedEx is working closely with healthcare customers to prepare for additional vaccine shipments and transportation of critical vaccine-related supplies," they said in their statement.

For the first time since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the United States is reporting an average of nearly 2,200 deaths from the disease per day, according to an ABC News analysis of data collected and published by The COVID Tracking Project.

The national seven-day average of COVID-19 deaths per day day is currently 2,171. That figure has increased by 139% in the past month.

Last week, there were nearly 15,000 fatalities from the disease recorded nationwide, including five days where the daily death toll surpassed the 2,000 mark. That's roughly equivalent to 88 COVID-19 deaths reported each hour.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has reported over 100,000 new cases of COVID-19 every day for more than a month straight, including three consecutive days where the daily count topped 200,000.

Just in the last month, the national seven-day average of daily new cases has doubled, now averaging 191,736 -- the highest it has been since the beginning of the pandemic.

There were 1,018,657 cases recorded nationwide in the first five days of December. To put that in perspective, it took nearly 100 days from the first recorded COVID-19 case in the U.S. for the country to surpass 1 million confirmed cases.

Hospitalizations continue to surge to unprecedented levels, with over 101,000 patients currently hopitalized with COVID-19 across the country -- a new national record.

In the past two months, current hospitalizations have more than tripled, increasing by 223%.

ABC News' Benjamin Bell, Brian Hartman, Kim Soorin and Arielle Mitropoulos contributed to this report.