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Three federally-run mass vaccination sites aimed at underserved communities are expected to open before the end of the month in Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth, Gov. Greg Abbott said Wednesday. The sites will be run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and state emergency management officials, and are described as “pilot sites” in the national effort to speed up the nation's COVID-19 vaccine distribution effort. (Brooks Harper, 2/10)

The Biden administration will partner with New York to build and staff two mass Covid-19 vaccination sites in the New York City area aimed at getting shots to minority communities hit hardest by the pandemic. The sites, which will open the week of Feb. 24, will be located at York College in the New York City borough of Queens and at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said at a press briefing on Wednesday. Each site will be able to administer 3,000 shots a day, making them the state’s largest vaccination sites to date. (Higgins-Dunn, 2/10)

With coronavirus variants posing a serious threat to President Joe Biden's efforts to contain the pandemic, a Biden official tells CNN that the administration is still simply "not where we want to be" on surveillance of mutations in the US -- and simultaneously worried that Americans will grow increasingly complacent about the virus. "We are not where we want to be in terms of genetic sequencing, although we are ramping up," the administration official said. "We are starting way behind on genetic sequencing." (Lee and Nedelman, 2/11)

President Biden is raising hopes that he will sharply scale up rapid at-home COVID-19 tests to help control the pandemic, but advocates say far more needs to be done beyond the administration’s early moves. A vocal group of health experts has been pushing for months to ramp up production of cheap and simple tests that people can use multiple times a week and get results in a matter of minutes, helping the country safely return to work and school until vaccines are widely available. (Sullivan, 2/11)

President Biden will undergo coronavirus testing every two weeks as a precaution despite receiving his second dose of the vaccine earlier this year, the White House said Wednesday. "There is 95 percent protection from the vaccine, but it’s not 100 percent protection," White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters. "So the president’s doctor believes it is reasonable and prudent to randomly test the president every two weeks as surveillance." (Samuels, 2/10)

About 40% of the nation’s coronavirus deaths could have been prevented if the United States’ average death rate matched other industrialized nations, a new Lancet Commission report found. While the Lancet Commission on Public Policy and Health in the Trump era faulted former President Donald Trump’s “inept and insufficient” response to COVID-19, its report said roots of the nation’s poor health outcomes are much deeper. (Alltucker, 2/11)

President Biden dodged a question Wednesday on whether his administration would punish China over the country's early handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Biden unveiled plans to review U.S. policy toward Beijing after meeting with Defense Sec. Lloyd Austin and other top military officials at the Pentagon. (2/11)

An expert from a World Health Organization team investigating the origins of Covid-19 on the ground in China has lashed out at US President Joe Biden for posturing against Beijing, and taken a shot at the credibility of US intelligence agencies after the State Department expressed uncertainty over the team's initial findings. In a press briefing on Tuesday, State Department spokesperson Ned Price said repeatedly that the US would welcome the findings by the World Health Organization (WHO) team in a conclusive report but would ultimately rely on its intelligence agencies and information from allies to reach its own conclusions. (Dewan, 2/10)

Elizabeth Fowler, who led the drafting of the Affordable Care Act and then implemented the major health law, has emerged as the leading contender to run the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, according to people familiar with the matter. Fowler is likely to head the Department of Health and Human Services’ health innovation center and would be charged with carrying out multi-year efforts to send taxpayer dollars toward paying for patient outcomes rather than individual procedures. (Stein, 2/10)