| Hey, good morning. One thing we're reading: Elizabeth Holmes took the stand for a fifth day and admitted reaching out to Rupert Murdoch to try and squash The Wall Street Journal's investigation into Theranos. Below: The Biden administration is weighing stricter coronavirus testing for travelers entering the U.S., and the FDA's advisers narrowly recommended greenlighting the nation's first pill to treat covid-19. But first: | Abortion rights are on trial today at the Supreme Court |  Abortion protesters outside the Supreme Court building this morning. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst | | | The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments today in the most consequential abortion case in decades. The justices' ruling on whether Mississippi is allowed to largely ban the procedure after 15 weeks could overturn — or undermine — the longstanding right to the procedure, first spelled out under Roe v. Wade in 1973. That could fundamentally alter the abortion landscape in the United States, as access to the procedure would depend on the state a woman lives in. | - Some potential scenarios: The justices could open the door to let states ban abortions before a fetus is viable, generally around 24 weeks. They could more loosely interpret what constitutes an "undue burden" on those seeking an abortion (a standard laid out in the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision). They could ditch Roe entirely, try to just uphold the Mississippi law or side with abortion rights supporters and strike it down.
| | This moment has been building for years. The newly transformed Supreme Court now has six Republican-appointed justices, which comes after President Donald Trump pledged to choose nominees who would overturn Roe's nearly half-century-old abortion protections. Ahead of the case, we pinged Robert Barnes, The Post's veteran Supreme Court reporter, to get his insight on everything from what justices he'll be watching closely to how to read the tea leaves during oral arguments. (Spoiler: He was judicious with his predictions.) |  Abortion rights activists demonstrated this morning too. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst | | | Rachel: Can you lay out the implications of Wednesday's oral arguments for us? | | Robert: On the surface, it is about Mississippi's law that bans most abortions after 15 weeks, which is much earlier than current Supreme Court precedents allow. But the state, joined by antiabortion activists and other conservative states, has raised the stakes by asking the court to overturn its precedents in 1973's Roe v. Wade and 1992's Planned Parenthood v. Casey. The latter case upheld the basic premise of Roe, that there is a constitutional right to abortion, and said states may not impose an undue burden on a woman seeking an abortion before viability, when the fetus can survive outside the womb. Alexandra: Does that mean the court will either have to uphold Roe and Casey or overturn them? Does this case necessitate that the justices weigh in on the viability standard? Robert: What the justices said they would decide when they accepted the case earlier this year was whether all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions are unconstitutional. There was no mention of Roe or Casey. But both sides say that the viability line is crucial to those cases. Rachel: You had a good piece this weekend on how this case is a long-awaited moment for Justice Clarence Thomas, an avowed Roe v. Wade critic. What other justices are you watching closely and why? Robert: Thomas is the only justice who has had the chance to weigh in on Roe, but it could be expected that Justices Alito and Gorsuch would be prepared to overturn them. The three liberals — Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan — have been solid votes for abortion rights. That leaves Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Kavanaugh and Barrett. I will be listening closely to the questions those three ask. |  Here's where the justices lean ahead of the biggest abortion rights case in decades. (Washington Post/Shelly Tan) | | | Rachel: What sort of questions could give you an indication of how they're leaning? How do you read the tea leaves as a court reporter? Robert: Assume that they are sympathetic to a state's ability to restrict abortion. Do they see a way to uphold the law without saying there is no constitutional right to abortion? Casey said there could be no "undue burden" on the right to abortion before viability. But most abortions take place much earlier, and before 15 weeks. Is there ground for compromise there? Alexandra: What alternatives might come into play if the court rejects the viability standard? Robert: If the court really finds itself stumped, it could simply say there can be some restrictions before viability, but not set out what those are. That would leave the issue for more litigation in lower courts, with the issue ending up at the Supreme Court again. Roberts usually favors an incremental approach, but he is not always the deciding vote now that the court has five other conservatives. | | Rachel: Do you have a prediction? Robert: I'm fortunate that my job is to cover the court's actions and decisions, and not to make predictions. | | |  | Coronavirus | | The Biden administration is considering stricter testing requirements for travelers entering the U.S. | | Biden is expected to announce tomorrow that officials will require everyone entering the country to be tested one day before boarding flights, regardless of their vaccination status or country of departure. Administration officials are also considering a requirement that all travelers get retested within three to five days of arrival, The Post's Lena H. Sun and Tyler Pager scooped. They are also debating a controversial provision that all travelers, including U.S. citizens, self-quarantine for seven days, even if their tests are negatives. Those who flout the rules might face penalties and fines. | The White House is searching for contingency funding as it monitors omicron risks | | The White House's budget office and senior Biden administration health officials are studying how much contingency funding they have available to respond to problems that arise as the result of the omicron variant, The Post's Jeff Stein, Tyler Pager, Taylor Telford and Dan Diamond report. | Vaccine makers are racing to develop omicron-specific boosters | | Pfizer and BioNTech have said that a vaccine targeted against the omicron variant could be ready within 100 days if necessary. Mikael Dolsten, Pfizer's chief scientific officer, explained what that sprint would look like in an interview with Stat. Already in the works: Vaccine makers are running tests to see if the existing coronavirus vaccines will protect against the new variant. In case they don't, Dolsten said the companies have started making a DNA template for the new vaccine construct. Up in the air: It's not clear if new clinical trials are needed, but if one is required, Pfizer could have enough experimental vaccine to begin a clinical trial within about two months. After that, it would take about one month to complete the study, Dolsten told Stat. In about three months: By early March, Pfizer and BioNTech could produce vaccines at a "very high commercial scale" — around 330 million doses a month. Meanwhile from Moderna: CEO Stéphane Bancel spooked financial markets when he predicted that existing coronavirus vaccines would be much less effective at combating omicron compared with previous variants of the virus, our colleagues Adela Suliman and Timothy Bella report. Scientists are scrambling to figure this, and other key questions, out about the variant. In other omicron news … | - The new variant could spell trouble for Biden. The president and his advisers have asserted that the end of the pandemic will raise the president's political fortunes, but the emergence of the omicron variant suggests that turning the corner on covid-19 isn't in the foreseeable future, The Post's Tyler Pager and Annie Linskey report.
| FDA advisers narrowly recommend authorization for the first covid-19 antiviral pill | | The Food and Drug Administration's advisory group voted 13 to 10 to authorize molnupiravir, the first coronavirus pill to prevent high-risk people from developing severe illness. | - The divided vote reflects the complex mix of benefits and risks involved with the easy mode of treatment, The Post's Carolyn Y. Johnson and Katie Shepherd report.
| | About the pill: The drug from Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics is taken as a five-day regimen within five days of the onset of coronavirus symptoms. Preliminary data released in October suggested it cut the risk of hospitalization and death in half. But after continued follow-up, the drug appeared less impressive, cutting those risks by only 30 percent. | - The unexplained erosion in efficacy was one factor that caused some members to vote no. Molnupiravir works by scrambling the genome of the coronavirus, resulting in catastrophic errors that disable it. But some committee members feared that the drug's mechanism could result in more fearsome variants.
| | In vaccine mandate news … | - National Guard members who refuse to get vaccinated will be barred from training and their pay will be withheld, the Pentagon said Tuesday. The apparent warning shot to Republican governors comes as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin rejected Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt's request to exempt his state's National Guard from the requirement, our colleague Alex Horton reports.
- A Trump-appointed judge blocked the Biden administration's vaccine requirement for health-care workers across the country. This comes a day after a different judge blocked it in 10 states, The Post's Eli Rosenberg and Adela Suliman reports.
| | |  | State scan | | The nation's first supervised drug sites opened in New York | | It's a major step in adopting harm reduction approaches to combat the nation's drug epidemic, as overdose deaths soar to record levels, our colleagues Lenny Bernstein and Meryl Kornfield report. About the centers: Trained staff at two locations will monitor drug users as they consume street drugs and can step in if anyone overdoses. | - "While the number of overdose deaths prevented may be small, the opening of the centers is a break with U.S. policy in the effort to save the lives of people who use drugs. Cities and states have been fighting for years to open the facilities but were stymied most recently by the Trump administration, which adamantly opposed them, and, in some cases, opposition from neighbors of the sites," our colleagues write.
- The Biden administration hasn't yet taken a stance on these sites. Biden's new drug czar Rahul Gupta declined to specify the White House's position in an interview with The Health 202 last month, citing ongoing litigation.
| | |  | White House prescriptions | | | On World AIDS Day, the Biden administration releases its strategy to combat HIV/AIDS. The plan includes expanding access to testing, accelerating research for a cure, decreasing stigma and discrimination, and reducing the racial inequities in the health care system. The country's goal is to end the HIV epidemic by 2030, and the framework gives direction on the administration's priorities through 2025. | | |  | Sugar rush | | | Thanks for reading! See y'all tomorrow. | |
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