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More than 50 million American households have received free at-home COVID-19 testing kits that started going out in late January, according to a White House official. “85 percent of the initial orders are now out the door. And in the next several days, we will complete the shipping of all of the initial orders,” White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Jeff Zients said at a news briefing Wednesday. (Santucci, 2/17)

President Joe Biden has tapped two people to temporarily fill Eric Lander’s dual roles as the president’s top science adviser and the head of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the White House announced on Wednesday. Biden named Alondra Nelson, the deputy director for science and society in the OSTP, as director of the office. The president also announced that Francis Collins, who retired in December from his role as director of the National Institutes of Health, would serve as his top science adviser and co-chair of the president’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. (Ward, 2/16)

An early sign that trouble was afoot in the White House science office came last November, when roughly a dozen of Eric Lander’s staff formed a “culture committee” aimed at improving morale. The group’s first action, five aides told STAT, was to create a “word cloud” depicting the adjectives they most often used to describe the work environment at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Of the dozens of words submitted, three in particular stood out: “hostile,” “siloed,” and “aggressive.” Three months later, Lander resigned as President Biden’s science adviser, after Politico reported a White House investigation that found “credible evidence” that he had violated workplace conduct rules. (Facher, 2/17)

President Joe Biden is hoping to use his upcoming State of the Union address to nudge the pandemic into the nation’s rear-view mirror. But it could turn into yet another disruptive display of national tensions and frustration over trying to move past COVID-19. Biden’s March 1 address to Congress will play out against what Vice President Kamala Harris has called a “malaise” over the persistence of COVID and growing public impatience to get back to normal after two years of pandemic restrictions. Even Democratic-run state and local governments are lifting restrictions as cases, hospitalizations and deaths decline. (Miller and Mascaro, 2/17)

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen urged her counterparts from leading industrialized countries to support the establishment of a new World Bank fund intended to prevent and prepare for future global health crises. A new “financial intermediary fund” under the auspices of the World Bank would help address gaps in preparedness, particularly among low-income countries, Yellen said, according to prepared remarks she’s scheduled to deliver virtually on Thursday to a meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors from Group of 20 countries. (Condon, 2/17)