Biden wants Congress to take action on gun reform

The White House COVID-19 response team at a virtual press briefing Monday announced the Defense Department and the Department of Health and Human Services struck a $230 million deal with the Australian company Ellume to make millions of at-home, over-the-counter COVID-19 tests.

Dr. Andy Slavitt, a senior adviser to White House COVID-19 response team, said the self-performed, over-the-counter test kits can detect COVID-19 with roughly 95% accuracy within 15 minutes and will be available for about $30.

"They can be used if you feel symptoms of COVID-19 and also for screening for people without symptoms, so they can safely go to work, school, into events that are appropriate for people ages two and older," Slavitt said.

He said the test is performed in a mid-turbinate nasal swab which, he said, "basically means it's less invasive than the long nasal pharyngeal swab that people may have seen on the news."

The test user puts the sample into a digital analyzer which can send test results to a smartphone in about 15 minutes. Results would not have to be sent out to a lab.

Citing the contract, Slavitt said Ellume will be able to scale their production to manufacture more than 19 million test kits per month by the end of 2021, 8.5 billion of which are guaranteed to the U.S. government.

Asked how a $30 at home test fit into White House's equity goal and for screening people regularly, Slavitt said the unit costs can only come down with mass production.

The White House COVID-19 response team at a virtual press briefing Monday acknowledged coronavirus variants "remain a great concern," but overall stressed Americans should take a vaccine as soon as it becomes available, pushing back on any concerns over getting a vaccine now despite variants evolving.

"When the vaccine becomes available to you, please get vaccinated," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, Biden's chief medical adviser on COVID-19.

Fauci said vaccinations are the best way to fight mutations because they prevent the virus from spreading and replicating.

"There is a fact that permeates virology, and that is: Viruses cannot mutate if they don't replicate," Fauci said.

He and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky also stressed wearing a mask and social distancing -- hours ahead of Biden's transportation mask mandate going into effect.

The Washington, D.C. area is bracing for more ice after the city’s biggest snowstorm in nearly two years left the district in a blanket of snow on Monday.

The weather delayed all Senate votes Monday including one on Biden's homeland security secretary nominee Alejandro Mayorkas to Tuesday. It also delayed the start to in-person learning Monday in the District leaving students to continue classes online instead.

The president on Sunday night, after a day of flurries, tweeted he was "Grateful for the short commute on days like these" along with a photo of him walking on the White House portico.

Though the Senate has essentially taken a snow day, ten Republican senators are still scheduled to meet with Biden at the White House later Monday to pitch a counterproposal to his COVID-19 relief package costing about a third of the size.

A Senate vote on Biden's nominee to lead the Department of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, that had been scheduled for Monday was pushed back until Tuesday because of the winter storm hitting Washington.

Mayorkas, on the cusp of Senate confirmation following a 55-42 procedural vote to close off debate on his nomination Thursday, is expected to be the fifth Biden Cabinet pick to be confirmed. If confirmed, he will be the first Latino and the first immigrant to lead the agency in charge of implementing the nation's immigration policies and border laws.

A former deputy secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, Mayorkas would return to the agency at a critical time for national security between the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and warning of domestic terror in the wake of the Capitol siege.

-ABC News' Trish Turner