Aria-hide lock icon and flag in banner
The lock icon and surrounding parentheses can be made aria-hidden, as it only communicates visual information.
https://github.com/trussworks/react-uswds/blob/c9f71d7d7989fb9c7ab2e264d1af26436dcb66c3/src/components/GovBanner/GovBanner.tsx#L64

Ditto for the flag image, which is purely decorative:
https://github.com/trussworks/react-uswds/blob/c9f71d7d7989fb9c7ab2e264d1af26436dcb66c3/src/components/GovBanner/GovBanner.tsx#L129-L133

The PR I'm working on will allow consumers to do this if they create a custom banner (like we did on DOL), but the standard GovBanner that we export for convenience should match the USWDS component code, for better or for worse.
For updating the USWDS recommended implementation, I'd recommend filing a bug with USWDS
ah, will do, you can close this one then
Opened issue here: https://github.com/uswds/uswds/issues/4912
USWDS implemented it! ☝️
Can this issue be closed then, or does it need a follow-up issue?