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By Dan Donahue, NBC Nightly News

Good Monday afternoon. There are growing superspreader fears after the Super Bowl, Donald Trump’s lawyers are previewing their defense on the eve of his second impeachment trial, and tonight we’re launching our new series “The Price You Pay: Your Taxes,” with everything you need to know before you file in this extraordinary year.

Here is what’s in our Nightly Rundown.

Maskless Super Bowl celebrations raise fear of another Covid surge

New cases of Covid in the U.S. declined nearly 20 percent last week compared to the week prior, the CDC said today.

But despite the drop, there are concerns that Super Bowl celebrations could cause another surge at a time when highly contagious variants are spreading across the country.

Public health officials fear millions of Americans may have gathered with others who do not live in their households to watch Sunday’s big game.

And after Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers dominated the Kansas City Chiefs, throngs of Bucs fans took to the streets to party unmasked.

These potential superspreader events come as the coronavirus variant from the U.K., now found in at least 33 states, is rapidly spreading.

A new study has found the U.K. variant is now doubling every 10 days in the U.S., and researchers estimate it has an increased transmission rate of 35 to 45 percent.

Researchers have also cited data showing the risk of dying from the U.K. variant is around 35 percent higher than with earlier strains. Neither study has been peer reviewed.

Coronavirus mutations and Super Bowl parties raise concerns

AstraZeneca vaccine doesn’t work well against South Africa variant, study finds

South Africa has halted plans to administer AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccine to frontline health workers, after a study found it isn't effective in preventing mild to moderate illness from the variant that originated there.

Preliminary data from a small study suggested that AstraZeneca’s vaccine offers only “minimal protection against mild-moderate disease” caused by the South Africa variant.

Health officials say the variant is more infectious, and now accounts for more than 90 percent of South Africa’s Covid cases.

Last week, South Africa received 1 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, and had planned to begin administering it to health care workers by the middle of this month.

Pfizer and Moderna have cited studies showing that their vaccines are less effective against the South Africa variant, but still give a sufficient level of protection.

The South Africa variant has been found in two states so far. Health officials are in a race against time to vaccinate as many people as possible to stay ahead of that strain and others.

Of the more than 59 million doses of vaccine distributed around the U.S. so far, 42.4 million have been administered, according to the CDC. View our vaccination tracker map.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the chief medical adviser to President Biden, told NBC News over the weekend that vaccine supply issues will improve as spring approaches.

“I can tell you that things are going to get better as we get from February into March, into April, because the number of vaccine doses that will be available will increase substantially,” Fauci said.

More Covid headlines:

Rep. Ron Wright, a Republican from Texas, is now the first sitting member of Congress to die after contracting Covid. Wright was also battling cancer.
New York City’s middle schools, which have been fully remote since November, will reopen for in-person learning on Feb. 25.
Delta Air Lines will continue to block middle seats and limit capacity on flights through April 30.
Facebook announced today it is “expanding” efforts to remove false claims about Covid and vaccines from its platform, and from Instagram.
China reported no new local infections today for the first time since Dec. 16.

Trump’s legal team accuses Democrats of “political theater” on eve of trial

The legal team for former President Donald Trump gave a preview of his defense ahead of his impeachment trial Tuesday for inciting the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

In a 78-page legal brief filed today, Trump’s attorneys argue that trying him now that he is out of office is unconstitutional, and they accuse Democrats of engaging in “political theater.”

They also maintain that when Trump told a crowd of his supporters to “fight like hell” before the attack, he did not mean it literally.

“Of the over 10,000 words spoken, Mr. Trump used the word ‘fight’ a little more than a handful of times and each time in the figurative sense that has long been accepted in public discourse,” the attorneys wrote.

Trump “did not direct anyone to commit lawless actions,” and to hold him accountable for the actions of a “small group of criminals” is “absurd,” the brief says.

The House impeachment managers, who are prosecuting the case against Trump, responded with their own, shorter brief.

The Democrats call Trump’s free speech defense “utterly baseless,” and wrote that “the House did not impeach President Trump because he expressed an unpopular political opinion. It impeached him because he willfully incited violent insurrection against the government.”

They also argued the trial is constitutional because, “there is no ‘January Exception’ to the Constitution that allows Presidents to abuse power in their final days without accountability.”

Here are five things to watch for when the trial begins.

Democrats push for $3,600 child tax credits in Covid relief bill

House Democrats are unveiling a plan to send American families up to $3,600 per child as part of President Biden’s $1.9 trillion Covid relief package.

The IRS would distribute the money monthly over the course of a year, adding up to $3,600 per child under the age of 6 and $3,000 per child ages 6 to 17, based on parents’ income, according to a draft copy of the plan obtained by NBC News.

The payments would phase out for individuals making more than $75,000 and couples making more than $150,000.

Biden has also called for raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour as part of the relief package, but he acknowledged that it probably won’t “survive” in the final stimulus bill.

The president said he would instead push for a standalone bill to raise the minimum wage.

A study out today from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour would result in the loss of 1.4 million jobs, but would also raise nearly 1 million people out of poverty over the next four years.

What else we’re watching:

Avalanches across the U.S. have killed 15 people in the last week, the highest toll in more than a century.
A glacier burst in India, unleashing a massive rush of water and debris. At least 19 people were killed, and more than 200 are missing.
The grandfather who pleaded guilty to negligent homicide after his 18-month-old granddaughter fell to her death from an 11-story window on a cruise ship docked in Puerto Rico, has been sentenced to three years’ probation.
A 26-year-old Michigan man was killed by shrapnel from a “small cannon type device” that was fired at a baby shower.

Watch us this evening at 6:30 p.m. ET / 5:30 p.m. CT on NBC, or check your local NBC station listing. After the broadcast, access Nightly News video on NBCNightlyNews.com or the NBC News app.

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