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With Rachel Roubein and Alice Miranda Ollstein

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— Joe Biden will kick off his presidency with a flurry of executive actions, as he takes ownership of the U.S.’ pandemic response.

— But none of those health-related orders will include major action on abortion, though he's expected to eventually reverse a series of Trump administration policies.

— The Trump health department abruptly stripped the FDA of a key oversight authority a matter of hours before President Donald Trump is set to leave office.

IT’S INAUGURATION DAY PULSE — and an honor to do our small part in covering this pandemic-era transfer of power.

Are you an incoming Biden health staffer? Say hi at [email protected], or DM for Signal.

THE BIDEN ERA BEGINS — At noon today, Biden will be sworn in as the nation’s 46th president — and then immediately get down to work.

Among the executive orders he plans to sign on day one:

— A federal mask mandate requiring face coverings and social distancing in all federal buildings and on all federal lands, as part of Biden’s effort to convince Americans to wear masks for the next 100 days.

— An order to reengage with the World Health Organization, in a reversal of President Donald Trump’s plan to ditch the international public health body — and an implicit rebuke of his predecessor's “America First” isolationism. Biden’s incoming chief medical adviser, Anthony Fauci, will head his administration’s delegation to the WHO and address the organization’s executive board on Thursday.

— An order reestablishing the National Security Council’s pandemic preparedness team, which was dismantled under Trump.

THOSE EARLY ACTIONS are a recognition of the steep coronavirus challenge that awaits Biden, as well as the massive effort that the incoming administration will need to pour into convincing Americans that the federal government is finally up to the task, POLITICO’s Alice Miranda Ollstein and Laura Barrón Lopez report.

The U.S. has now endured more than 400,000 Covid-19 deaths — a staggering sum that the president-elect acknowledged during a vigil at the Lincoln Memorial on Tuesday. The half-million death mark is likely only weeks away, and Biden will also inherit a feeble economy and a demoralized and distrustful American public.

“This is clearly a national emergency and we will treat it as such,” said Jeff Zients, Biden’s pandemic response coordinator.

THAT CRUSH OF EXECUTIVE ORDERS will also set the pace for Biden’s health team, which is expected to begin reversing scores of Trump-era policies and building out its own ambitions even before HHS — and most of its subagencies — has a permanent leader in place.

Expect those early efforts to focus on expanding access to Obamacare and Medicaid coverage while imposing new limits on Trump-backed initiatives to grow short-term and association health plans. And in the midst of that, Biden will try to convince skeptical red state governors to get on board with his Covid response plan, POLITICO’s Joanne Kenen and Rachel Roubein report.

BUT THE INITIAL BLITZ of executive actions won’t include any of the abortion rights policies Biden pledged to enact on the campaign trail, Alice notes.

Incoming White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden is still planning to rescind the rule barring U.S. foreign aid from going to organizations that provide abortions — the so-called Mexico City policy — in the administration’s first days. But she demurred on Biden’s timing for a range of other Democratic priorities, including the reversal of Trump’s Title X rule that stripped federal family planning dollars from Planned Parenthood and the rollback of a mandate requiring people to obtain abortion pills in person during the pandemic.

And in a sign of the pressure Biden will soon face from all sides of even his own party, that has already created some anxiety among reproductive rights groups, who are well aware that Biden was once one of the Democratic Party’s staunchest anti-abortion voices.

BLINKEN: US WILL JOIN COVAX — During his confirmation hearing Tuesday, secretary of State nominee Antony Blinken disclosed another item on Biden’s to-do list: bringing the U.S. into the COVAX initiative.

The U.S. is one of the last remaining countries that has yet to join COVAX, the WHO-backed global effort aimed at ensuring every country has access to Covid-19 vaccines. It could be a vital source of shots for some of the world’s poorest nations. The WHO’s director-general earlier this week said COVAX has secured 2 billion vaccine doses, with deliveries set to begin in February.

AZAR, VERMA AND HAHN HANG ON TILL THE END — The trio persevered through ups and downs, scandals and falling outs, and instances each where it appeared their days in the Trump administration were numbered.

All three are now set to exit, improbably, alongside their president. Their political survival is a testament to Trump’s own tolerance for conflict within his administration and the distinct ways they learned to operate in that environment: HHS Secretary Alex Azar as the loyal executor of Trump’s agenda, CMS chief Seema Verma as the policy specialist allied with Vice President Mike Pence and FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn as an extension of the FDA’s vast rank and file.

— Yet the infighting took a toll on the legacy they will leave behind. The inability of Trump’s top officials to get along hampered major initiatives like his drug pricing blueprint, which barely got off the ground; derailed a long-promised plan to replace Obamacare; and shaped the Trump administration’s failed pandemic response from the beginning, turning a planned “all-of-government” effort into a patchwork of competing power centers.

And speaking of interagency conflict...

FDA HIT WITH ANOTHER LAST-MINUTE POLICY CHANGE — HHS agreed to strip the FDA of its ability to regulate certain genetically modified animals — the last in a string of end-of-term moves curbing the agency’s authority, POLITICO's Adam Cancryn and Liz Crampton report.

The deal would shift more regulation of gene-edited animals to the USDA, fulfilling a long-sought priority for the livestock industry on Trump’s final full day. Yet it came despite strong objections from the FDA, including Hahn, who refused to sign off on the agreement.

— HHS instead tapped Assistant Secretary for Health BRETT GIROIR to sign the deal, a move that outraged FDA officials, who believe the power transfer is illegal and could endanger public health. The agency’s lawyers have also repeatedly objected to the proposal.

— HHS is blaming the White House for the sudden change in policy. In what may be a first of his tenure, Azar explicitly broke with Trump, with the department contending he also opposed the agreement. Still, that opposition only went so far; Azar’s HHS still carried out the orders and overrode its own FDA “at the direction of the White House,” a spokesperson said.

— A related read: The FDA fought "substantial" pressure under Trump, Hahn told POLITICO's Sarah Owermohle in an exit interview. Pros can get the full transcript of that conversation.

CMS TAPS VETERAN STAFFERS AS ACTING HEADS — Liz Richter and Jeff Wu — two longtime career staffers — will temporarily lead CMS under the Biden administration, according to an all-staff email from Verma that was later obtained by POLITICO.

Richter will serve as CMS’ acting administrator. She’s been at the agency for over 30 years, most recently as the deputy center director of the Center for Medicare. Wu, who first joined CMS in 2011, will be Richter’s deputy. He’s led the agency’s work on Obamacare insurance reforms at the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight.

DOJ CLOSES STOCK PROBE OF BURR —The Justice Department won’t pursue criminal charges related to stock trades that Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) made while receiving private coronavirus briefings early on in the pandemic, POLITICO’s Andrew Desiderio reports. The announcement likely clears the way for him to take over the top GOP spot on the Senate HELP Committee.

Burr unloaded hundreds of thousands of dollars in stocks before the full extent of the pandemic’s economic impact sent the stock market into a nosedive. Those trades had been under scrutiny since last May, when federal authorities served a warrant on his home and seized his cell phone.

Biden’s pick for science adviser is a genome-sequencing pioneer who comes with some baggage, BuzzFeed News’ Peter Aldhous reports.

For Vanity Fair, Katherine Eban traces how Trump’s chaotic Covid response overwhelmed the FDA and its rookie commissioner.

The Biden health team will immediately confront a question critical to the Covid response: Whether to gamble on building a brand new hospital data system, The Atlantic’s Alexis Madrigal writes.