Hey friends, it's me V Spear and you might be wondering what I'm doing here out from underneath the desk floating around in podcast land.

This is my new show, The Interesting. The idea is simple. On TikTok I explain the news in little chunks and that's great. We have a lot of fun, but I wanted more time with y'all, so I created a space where we could do just that.

V Interesting from Lemonade Media out now. Listen Tuesdays and Fridays wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, it's Martine. If you were like me and you were still crossing people off of your shopping list, consider the gift of knowledge by buying someone or maybe even yourself a subscription to the Washington Post.

We have a very special deal right now for just $9.99. You or someone you love can get a whole year to the post and all of its content. This deal ends soon on January 4th.

To get this perfect holiday gift, go to WashingtonPost.com slash subscribe. Okay, enjoy the show.

I promised when I got elected, I'd always give it to you straight from the shoulder. On Tuesday, President Biden addressed the latest surge in cases of the coronavirus, fueled by the rise of the Omicron variant, which is now the dominant variant in the United States.

Let me answer some questions that lay out the steps the vice president are taking to prepare for the rising number of cases. Experts tell us we could expect in the weeks ahead.

First, the administration announced plans to make COVID testing more available by mailing half a billion home test kits to people who want them.

We're providing access to free at home tests for those who may have insurance as well may not have insurance, I should say as well. But it's not enough.

We have to do more. We have to do better and we will.

They also have plans to get more resources to overwhelmed hospitals.

Once overlining to all of this is that we do have more treatments against COVID than ever before, but of course the best thing to do is to avoid getting sick in the first place.

Because just like trying to get a test right now, cutting edge treatments like anti-COVID pills could be hard to get.

From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post Reports. I'm Martin Powers. It's Tuesday, December 21st.

Today, what we know about emerging anti-COVID pills and how they could make the coronavirus less deadly. Plus remembering feminist icon Bellhooks.

Last week, the US blew past 800,000 COVID-related deaths. Cases and hospitalizations are climbing. It all feels like the movie Groundhog Day.

Except this time, there is a new tool on the horizon. Anti-COVID pills, which are expected to be approved by the FDA as early as this week.

There has been a lot of talk and promise about these pills helping to prevent severe illness. We wanted to know whether those promises were true.

So we asked Science reporter Carolyn Johnson about what the availability of anti-COVID pills might mean for the future of the pandemic.

It's the beginning of the building out of the treatments for COVID that will allow us to manage it over a longer term of potentially years.

We now know this virus is so wily and we can't predict everything that it's going to do. But these pills are going to help us fight against this threat.

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