The big picture: The XBB.1.5 COVID subvariant — nicknamed the “Kraken” variant — is representing more and more cases, and experts are questioning the variant's severity as real-world data emerges.
The departure of COVID chief science officer David Kessler, announced Friday by the White House, marks the unofficial end of the "Operation Warp Speed" era and the extraordinaryall-of-government response to the pandemic.
Why it matters: The cross-agency effort the Trump and Biden administrations ran to speed up production and distribution of COVID therapeutics is widely viewed as one of the few legitimate successes in the federal pandemic response.
Any U.S. military veteran in "acute suicidal crisis" will be able to access emergency health care at any facility for free starting next week, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced Friday.
The big picture: Veterans must be enrolled in the VA system to be eligible for most medical benefits, but that requirement won't apply to emergency suicide care under the new policy. The move grants access to care to up to nine million veterans who are not currently enrolled, according to the VA.
