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President Joe Biden on Thursday will outline new approaches to control the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, which rages on despite the wide availability of vaccines. In a speech, Biden will focus on six areas, including new plans to get more people vaccinated, enhancing protection for those who already have had shots and keeping schools open, according to a White House official.The speech would also cover increasing testing and mask-wearing, protecting an economic recovery from the pandemic-induced recession and improving healthcare for people infected with the disease, the official said. (9/9)

President Biden will announce on Thursday new steps in his administration's COVID-19 response that involves testing, mandates, and school measures depending on a person's vaccination status, the White House said. White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Wednesday that the new components would affect people across the country. “There are six steps the president’s announcing, there will be new components,” Psaki said. “Some of that will be related to access to testing, some will be related to mandates, some will be related to how we ensure kids will be protected in schools.” (Gangitano, 9/8)

Among the topics up for discussion are ways to improve vaccine manufacturing and distribution and ramp up the supplies of oxygen to countries in need, and the possibility of international cooperation on research and development related to Covid-19. President Joe Biden is likely to call for the summit as part of a broader speech on Thursday detailing new initiatives designed to end the pandemic. Though Biden is expected to focus much of his speech on the domestic coronavirus response, people familiar with the matter said he will also emphasize the need for greater global cooperation and work toward addressing inequities in developing countries. (Cancryn, 9/8)

Americans are now getting infected with COVID-19 at 10 times the rate needed to end the pandemic, which won't end until more people get vaccinated, NIAID director Anthony Fauci tells Axios. "The endgame is to suppress the virus. Right now, we're still in pandemic mode, because we have 160,000 new infections a day. That's not even modestly good control ... which means it's a public health threat." (O'Reilly, 9/9)

The United States’ Covid-19 testing system is once again struggling to keep pace with surging infections, amid the monthslong push by the Biden administration and states to increase the country’s vaccination rate. Testing labs nationwide have capacity to spare, but the closure of mass-testing sites run by cities, states or the federal government has resulted in many people waiting longer or traveling further to get a test. Nor have many schools or businesses implemented the widespread rapid testing that President Joe Biden called for last year, and that has helped countries such as Germany reopen while limiting infection. (Lim, 9/8)