With help from Adriel Bettelheim and Brianna Ehley

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— The Biden administration is wrestling with how to decipher a complex vaccine distribution system while keeping tabs on new coronavirus variants.

— A group of Senate Republicans have assembled a slimmed-down coronavirus relief bill — and they will have President Joe Biden’s ear today.

— Local health care leaders are enlisting everyone from social media stars to local nurses to combat vaccine skepticism.

Welcome to Monday’s PULSE, where we note the passing of Rutgers University researcher Andrew Brooks, developer of the first Covid spit test. Way back in April, the FDA greenlit his process, which has been used more than 4 million times since and is credited with easing the pandemic’s early testing backlogs.

Nominate your unsung heroes and send tips to your regular Pulse host, [email protected].

ENDING THE PANDEMIC WILL BE A HERCULEAN TASK — The Biden team came in with a 200-page playbook to curtail the coronavirus’ devastation. But the administration’s first 10 days have only underscored the sheer magnitude of the task ahead, and it could be months before the administration begins to turn the tide of the pandemic.

— The vaccine challenge: Biden’s team is trying to determine the whereabouts of upwards of 20 million vaccine shots that have been sent to states. Only about 2 million of those unaccounted for doses were due to data reporting lags; the rest are either sitting idle or are somewhere in the complex distribution pipeline, federal officials tell POLITICO’s Tyler Pager, Adam Cancryn and Joanne Kenen.

— A mutating virus: New coronavirus variants are showing up in more states, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has only done genetic sequencing on a fraction of the coronavirus samples that testing experts say is needed to understand their spread, POLITICO’s Sarah Owermohle reports.

Meanwhile, Covid-19 vaccines may be less effective against a variant first found in South Africa, new research suggests. That’s prompted vaccine developers to begin work on booster shots to heighten protection against the latest strains, and the FDA to start crafting a plan to quickly revise vaccine formulas if the new variants withstand existing shots, POLITICO’s Brianna Ehley writes.

— Supply shortages: The Biden team is increasing the number of shots delivered to states for at least three weeks and is aiming to buy 200 million more doses, though those won’t be ready until the summer. Administration officials are facing a harsh reality: There’s no simple way to dramatically scale up vaccine availability.

TODAY: BIDEN TO MEET WITH SENATE REPUBLICANS ON COVID RELIEF — Ten Senate Republicans are pitching a counterproposal to the president’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus aid package in the hope of heading off Democratic attempts to pass the next Covid relief measure without GOP votes, POLITICO’s Burgess Everett writes.

Biden spoke with Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and invited her colleagues to head to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. for a “full exchange of views,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement Sunday. Yet, she indicated Biden hasn’t decided against his original plan, either.

— The Republicans’ bill includes spending $160 billion on vaccines, testing, treatment and personal protective equipment, and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a member of the group, estimated the legislation would cost roughly $600 billion in total. More details will come today, according to a GOP aide.

The lawmakers’ Sunday letter to Biden indicated their alternative would also extend unemployment benefits that expire in March, match Biden’s request for nutrition assistance and send a new round of payments to “those families who need assistance the most, including their dependent children and adults.”

MEANWHILE, DEMOCRATIC LEADERS in both chambers this week are planning to pass budget resolutions allowing the party to approve Biden’s $1.9 trillion plan without GOP support. That path is still filled with peril: All 50 Senate Democrats will need to be on board, and House leaders can afford few defections.

RESCINDING THE RESCISSIONS — Biden moved on Sunday night to cancel Trump’s 11th-hour attempt to cut billions of dollars in government programs, the White House said in a press release, including roughly $25 million in funding for gun violence prevention research.

Trump’s request had been largely symbolic, and Congress was already unlikely to act on it. Yet, funding to study gun violence has been divisive in the past, and had until recently been taboo at the CDC for more than two decades.

VIRAL CAMPAIGN — Health care providers trying to build trust in Covid vaccines in hard-to-reach communities are eschewing big-name celebrities or splashy PR campaigns in favor of local doctors and social media “micro-influencers” to get the message out, POLITICO’s Mohana Ravindranath writes.

The effort marks a big shift away from the Trump administration’s plans for a celebrity-studded ad blitz meant to “defeat despair” about the pandemic — a campaign that was canceled last fall amid scrutiny. Instead, Biden has promised his own “science-first” federal campaign to promote vaccination and public health measures.

— Those working with skeptical or hard-to-reach groups say targeted messages will prove more effective. But campaign organizers acknowledge messaging can be inconsistent and hard to scale up quickly. And they still have to navigate anti-vax trolls on various sites.

NEW COVID VARIANT FOUND IN MARYLAND — The highly transmissible coronavirus strain first identified in South Africa was confirmed in an adult residing in the “Baltimore metro region” who hadn't left the country, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan’s office said on Saturday, indicating a likely case of community transmission.

The first appearance of the variant in the Washington area comes after South Carolina announced the first two U.S. cases last Thursday. Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and Novavax have all said their vaccines have been less effective against the strain, putting more pressure on public health authorities to roll out vaccinations quicker and push safety measures like mask-wearing and hand-washing.

CALLING IN KAMALA — One of Vice President Kamala Harris’ first tasks in office could be her most important: Convincing vaccine-skeptical communities — particularly people of color — to get immunized, POLITICO’s Eugene Daniels writes.

The administration plans to deploy Harris, possibly through virtual events and town halls, to spread awareness among the communities the pandemic has hit the hardest. Less than half of states have publicly reported Covid-19 vaccination data by race and ethnicity, but initial data shows Black and Hispanic people are getting vaccinated at lower rates than white people, despite accounting for a higher rate of coronavirus cases.

On tap this week: The CDC plans to release a report with data on race and ethnicity in coronavirus vaccinations, an agency spokesperson confirmed to PULSE.

FIRST IN PULSE: WATCHDOG GROUP WANTS DETAILS ON DRUG COMPANY’S TRADING PLANS — Accountable.US, a nonpartisan watchdog group, is calling on pharmaceutical companies to release details of certain trading plans, as well as to temporarily freeze trading and exercising of stock options by senior executives and directors. The group detailed the request in a letter to the CEOs of Pfizer, Moderna, Eli Lilly, Novavax and Emergent BioSolutions.

WANTED: $10B FOR MENTAL HEALTH, ADDICTION TREATMENT — Rep. David Trone (D-Md.) wants lawmakers to sign onto a letter urging congressional leadership to include $10 billion for behavioral health funding in the next coronavirus relief package. In a letter, obtained by Brianna, Trone asks for $5 billion for a grant to boost addiction treatment and $5 billion to bolster community mental health services. December’s stimulus bill included $4.25 billion for the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, but Trone argues more dollars are desperately needed.

Top Trump officials actively lobbied against giving states billions of dollars to aid vaccinations, Stat’s Nicholas Florko reports.

An intense focus on vaccinating older adults is pushing essential workers further back in line, write The Washington Post’s Lena H. Sun, Isaac Stanley-Becker and Akilah Johnson.

New CDC-commissioned software meant to manage the coronavirus vaccine rollout has instead been plagued with problems, reports Cat Ferguson with MIT Technology Review.