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With Alice Miranda Ollstein

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— Two of President Joe Biden's top public health nominees will face their confirmation hearings today, as the administration tries to fill out its HHS leadership.

— HHS Secretary nominee Xavier Becerra's confirmation hearings previewed the major policy battles that could define Biden's health legacy.

— A federal initiative to help Americans pay for Covid-related funeral costs is stalled over fraud concerns.

WELCOME TO THURSDAY PULSE — where one year ago, CDC official Nancy Messonnier told reporters it’s “not a question of if but rather a question of when” the U.S. sees a coronavirus outbreak.

Make today a better news day — send tips to [email protected].

BIDEN’s PUBLIC HEALTH PICKS HIT THE HILL — The Senate will grill Vivek Murthy, Biden’s pick for surgeon general, and Rachel Levine, the assistant secretary for health nominee, who would be the first openly transgender official confirmed by the Senate to a federal position.

They will appear jointly in front of the Senate HELP Committee, where POLITICO’s Alice Miranda Ollstein reports they will each face questions about their respective track records.

BUT OF THE TWO, Murthy is likely to face the most significant skepticism. As surgeon general during the Obama administration, his confirmation was stalled for more than a year over bipartisan concerns about his view that gun violence constituted a public health threat.

In 2021, that’s far from a dealbreaker for Democrats — but could still raise hackles with some of the panel's Republicans.

The close Biden confidante may also be interrogated over his private-sector work as a Covid consultant to the cruise industry and other big corporations, as well as paid speeches he made to industry groups — work that altogether netted him millions of dollars during the pandemic.

LEVINE’s ROAD TO CONFIRMATION appears smoother, with the former Pennsylvania health official set to emphasize her training as a pediatrician and work on the opioid crisis in addition to her role in the state’s Covid response, according to her prepared remarks.

Still, Levine is likely to get some scrutiny over her decision last year to remove her mother from a personal care facility as Covid cases in the nursing homes her department oversaw continued to rise.

WHAT BECERRA’S HEARINGS SAY ABOUT BIDEN’s AGENDA — Biden’s pick for HHS secretary appears headed for confirmation in spite of a conservative campaign to tank his nomination. The Senate Finance Committee is likely to vote next week on sending his nomination to the Senate floor, a source tells Alice.

Yet even as some Republicans conceded that Becerra has the votes, his two days of hearings previewed what he’ll have to confront as the Biden administration’s top health official:

— The shifting fight over health care costs. Both Republicans and Democrats quizzed Becerra over how he would slash the cost of insurance coverage, drugs and medical tests and procedures — a change from past debates over coverage.

Becerra notably dodged on how exactly he would pursue lower drug prices, but suggested he may favor keeping some Trump-era cost containment efforts like requiring hospitals to disclose the rates they negotiate with insurers.

— What’s next for Obamacare. Republicans largely avoided mentioning the landmark health law they spent a decade trying to repeal, preferring instead to hammer Becerra over his past endorsements of a single-payer system. But the despite having previously declared himself a supporter of “Medicare for All,” Becerra during Wednesday’s hearing vowed to stick to Biden’s more moderate goal of expanding Obamacare.

— How to reopen schools. Becerra steered around questions about how quickly to get kids back in classrooms — an issue that’s already tripped up the administration. He said only that he would defer to local school officials on how and when to reopen.

— Conservatives’ efforts to keep abortion policy on voters’ minds. Several Republicans challenged Becerra over the administration’s abortion policy plans, generating the few sharp exchanges of the hearings.

Yet the effort to paint Becerra as a radical on abortion hasn’t swayed any Democrats. Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey, one of the few Democrats who supports abortion restrictions, called Becerra on Wednesday “the kind of leader our nation needs.”

COVID FUNERAL AID PROGRAM STALLS — A $2 billion program run by FEMA to help Americans pay for funerals for loved ones lost to Covid would be the largest-ever of its type.

But, POLITICO’s Erin Banco writes, the agency hasn’t settled on a way to prevent fraudsters from forging death certificates in an attempt to collect money — and, for logistical and regulatory reasons, the CDC can’t verify whether an individual death was caused by the coronavirus.

— FEMA also still needs to define who would qualify for the payments. Eligible recipients could receive between $3,000 to $7,000 to reimburse the families of people who died from Covid last year, with eligible expenses including the purchase of caskets, mortuary services and burial plots.

FEMA officials will first review documentation, such as death certificates and proof that the applicant is the dead person’s next of kin, before approving payments. But it's also weighing additional measures aimed at authenticating those documents.

— One lingering dilemma: What to do about unconfirmed Covid deaths. Limited testing and a lack of knowledge early in the pandemic meant doctors often struggled to identify why exactly their patients were dying — meaning “Covid-19” wasn’t always listed on their death certificates. And some hospitals cited “coronavirus” as contributing to patients’ deaths rather than “Covid-19,” a quirk that resulted in the CDC not initially counting them as Covid deaths.

MODERNA STARTS VARIANT VACCINE TRIALS — The drugmaker’s modified vaccine targeting one of the new Covid variants will soon begin human trials, POLITICO’s Sarah Owermohle writes.

The initial trials are being run by the National Institutes of Health, and the vaccine may ultimately be able to skip a massive phase 3 trial stage. Moderna is also weighing the creation of a new Covid vaccine aimed at multiple strains, as well as a third-dose booster of its already-authorized Covid shot.

HOW THE BILLS COULD BRING BACK BROADWAY — An intensive Covid screening strategy meant to get Buffalo Bills fans back in the team’s stadium is being expanded in hopes it will allow New York to open other large venues, POLITICO’s Shannon Young reports for the Recovery Lab series.

The plan — which includes testing, checkpoints and small group pods — was recently instituted for basketball games at Madison Square Garden and the Barclays Center. And if all goes well, it could pave the way to Covid-safe to weddings, concerts and even Broadway shows.

Success could make New York a model for reopening, and give beleaguered Gov. Andrew Cuomo a sorely needed win. Yet there is still a risk that the new protocol’s promising early results were just an anomaly.

FIRST IN PULSE: A NEW COALITION FOR COVID LONG-HAULERS — A range of organizations are forming a new advocacy group, the Long COVID Alliance, to push for greater funding and research into patients who suffer Covid symptoms long after they’re free of the virus.

The coalition is making a series of recommendations for how the NIH should spend an initial $1.15 billion allocated for long-term Covid studies, and calling on the agency to prioritize health equity and the creation of a pipeline to translate research into treatments for longer-term health problems caused by Covid.

— Who’s backing the alliance: Solve M.E., the National Health Council and the Open Medicine Foundation are among the 50 groups signed on as partners in the initiative.

HHS ALUM HEADING CAMPAIGN TO UNDO TRUMP REGS — A new initiative called Keep US Covered is running a six-figure campaign to roll back Trump administration regulations that expanded short-term health plans and health reimbursement arrangements, in the wake of Biden’s executive order reviewing those same regulations.

The group is headed by Obama-era health official Sonja Nesbit, who served as HHS’ deputy assistant secretary for legislation and is now a managing director at FTI Consulting. Public affairs firm Seven Letter is also helping run the campaign, which is being funded by a single anonymous donor.

The CDC is planning to use a longstanding tool called VaccineFinder to help people more easily find Covid vaccine providers, STAT’s Katie Palmer reports.

New Pew Research polling shows a majority of adults want to wait until teachers are vaccinated before reopening schools, despite the Biden administration’s push for in-class learning.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s sister, Mercia Bowser, died Wednesday of Covid-19 complications at age 64, The Washington Post’s Julie Zauzmer writes.