Axios

A member of President-elect Joe Biden's COVID-19 advisory team told CNBC on Monday that Biden plans to invoke the Defense Production Act to boost production of coronavirus vaccines.

Why it matters: The law allows the president to direct the private sector to prioritize manufacturing in the interest of national defense.

The Transportation Security Administration screened 1,284,599 people at airport checkpoints around the U.S. on Sunday, according to agency data.

Why it matters: It's the highest number of travelers the TSA has recorded since the COVID-19 pandemic was declared in March.

The New Yorker is devoting nearly the entire issue — something the magazine has done just a handful of times in its history — to "The Plague Year," a 40-page account by Lawrence Wright about how America botched its virus response.

The intrigue: Much of Wright's narration of the West Wing's panicked early response is from the point of view of deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger, a former Marine and China correspondent for The Wall Street Journal and Reuters

A court in Shanghai sentenced a citizen journalist to four years in prison Monday after finding her guilty of "picking quarrels and provoking trouble" by reporting on China's early coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, per rights groups.

Why it matters: Zhang Zhan's conviction marks the first known sentence of someone "who chronicled authorities' early struggle to manage the outbreak," Bloomberg notes.

The number of COVID-19 infections confirmed in the U.S. surpassed 19 million on Sunday, per Johns Hopkins. The U.S. coronavirus death toll stands at over 333,000.

The big picture: The New York Times notes this means "at least 1 in 17" Americans have tested positive for the virus during the pandemic. The Census Bureau estimated the U.S. population to be about 330,750,000 for the last week of December, per CNN. That means the virus has killed roughly one in every 1,000 in the U.S.

Several lawmakers on Sunday railed against President Trump and demanded he sign the $900 billion coronavirus relief bill and $1.4 trillion government funding measure passed by Congress last week.

Why it matters: Unemployment benefits for millions of Americans lapsed overnight, and the federal government may be forced to shut down this week if Trump does not sign the measure.

More LGBTQ Americans, especially young adults, are facing higher risks of poor mental health, homelessness and lost income during the coronavirus pandemic, according to advocates.

Why it matters: LGBTQ people were already more vulnerable before the pandemic, due to persistent gaps in health care access and employment protections, even after this summer's Supreme Court ruling.

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a video marking the first International Day of Epidemic Preparedness Sunday "history tells us that this will not be the last pandemic, and epidemics are a fact of life."

What he's saying: Tedros said responses to such outbreaks had been "dangerously short-sighted," throwing money at the problem without preparing for the next one.

The European Union began on Sunday a coordinated rollout of coronavirus vaccinations across its 27 member states in a drive to inoculate some 450 million people.

Why it matters: Several European countries have tightened restrictions as cases, deaths and hospitalizations surge. EU countries have recorded at least 16 million COVID-19 cases and 336,000 deaths since the pandemic began, per AP.