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Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, a longtime Democratic health policy expert, has emerged as the leading candidate to run President Joe Biden’s Medicare and Medicaid agency, according to three sources familiar with the Biden team’s discussions. The eventual head of the trillion-dollar agency will be charged with overseeing Biden’s pledge to expand Obamacare and reverse Trump-era restrictions on the health care safety net. (Roubein, Luthi and Cancryn, 2/4)

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, described low morale among staff at the agency after Donald Trump spent months downplaying the severity of COVID-19, flouting the agency’s recommendations, and sidelining public health experts. In an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Wednesday, Walensky said staff at the CDC have been “muzzled, they have been beaten down, but they are still there, and they are working hard, long hours.” Walensky, formerly chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, described staff at the agency as “career public health officials, stewards of the health of this nation and really of the world” who are “doing the hard work that is about to protect the rest of the country and that has been working to protect the rest of the country.” (Kaufman, 2/4)

With more than half of America reluctant or flatly opposed to getting a COVID-19 vaccine, a VIP-filled video call on Thursday targeted the nation’s military families with an urgent plea: Get the shot. “We need your help,” first lady Jill Biden told hundreds of listeners on a call set up by Blue Star Families. ”That’s why we’re encouraging everyone to mask up, socially distance and get the vaccine when it’s your turn.” (Baldor, 2/4)

A sailor assigned to the USS Tennessee battleship died Thursday in Florida from complications related to COVID-19, bringing the official number of service members killed by the coronavirus to 20. (Mitchell, 2/4)