People over 75, front-line essential workers should get vaccine next, CDC panel says

Vice President Mike Pence will publicly receive a COVID-19 vaccination Friday at the White House, his office announced Wednesday evening.

Pence will be the highest level White House official to publicly receive the vaccine. He will take the treatment "to promote the safety and efficacy of the vaccine and build confidence among the American people," according to his office.

Second lady Karen Pence and Surgeon General Jerome Adams will also be vaccinated at the Friday event, according to the vice president's office.

More details on the vaccination event at the White House will be revealed at a later date, the office said.

The NBA and NBA Players Association released their latest update on their coronavirus testing, less than a week before the start of the new season.

"Of the 549 players tested for COVID-19 since Dec. 10, one new player has returned a confirmed positive test," the league and union said in a joint statement.

The unidentified player is in isolation, according to both organizations.

Teams are currently playing preseason games and are scheduled to officially start the season on Dec. 22.

Los Angeles County recorded 131 new deaths Wednesday, the highest number since the pandemic began, according to health officials.

The grim milestone comes as the county continues to see huge jumps in new cases and hospitalizations in the last couple of weeks, according to L.A. County Public Health Director Dr. Barbara Ferrer.

From Nov. 1 to Dec. 16, the number of Los Angeles residents hospitalized with COVID-29 rose from 791 to 4,456, according to Ferrer. She said it could reach 5,000 by Monday.

"As we continue to see more cases and more hospitalizations, increases in daily deaths will stay on this very tragic and troubling course for some time," Ferrer said during the daily news conference.

The county recorded 21,411 new cases on Wednesday, but Ferrer noted that the new data includes a backlog of approximately 7,000 cases.

From Nov. 1 through Dec. 8, the average number of new daily cases increased by 656%, according to Ferrer. 

"In the past week and a half, we have seen cases increase from an average of about 5,900 cases each day in the last week of November to an average of 9,264 the second week in December," she said.

-ABC News' Cammeron Parrish

Moncef Slaoui, President Donald Trump’s top science adviser in the vaccine effort, expects the vast majority of seniors in the country to be vaccinated by the end of March, he told CNBC's "Health Returns.”

About 120 million Americans are over the age of 65. While vaccine doses are just starting to reach nursing homes, Slaoui said he expects pharmacies like CVS and Walgreens to begin offering shots in February to seniors living outside long-term care facilities.

Because two doses are required, Slauoi said he expects it will take until the end of March to immunize about 100 million of the nation’s seniors.

ABC News’ Anne Flaherty contributed to this report.