The Biden administration, looking forward to a potential winter surge of Covid-19, introduced on Wednesday that it was reviving its program of providing Individuals free coronavirus exams by the mail and would spend $600 million to purchase exams from a dozen home producers.
The web site for this system, covidtests.gov, will start accepting orders on Monday, and households will obtain 4 exams. Daybreak O’Connell, the assistant secretary for preparedness and response on the Division of Well being and Human Companies, mentioned the cash would fund the acquisition of 200 million exams to replenish the nation’s stockpile as exams are despatched out.
However a byproduct of this system, Ms. O’Connell mentioned, is that it’ll shore up home manufacturing capability within the occasion of one other severe coronavirus surge. And if there’s a spike in demand, she mentioned, the division has given the producers permission to promote the exams on to retailers forward of the federal government.
Coronavirus hospitalizations have been on the rise in america, although they continue to be low in contrast with earlier stretches of the pandemic, and free exams are actually more durable to come back by for a lot of Individuals. Whereas non-public insurers had beforehand been required to cowl as much as eight at-home exams per 30 days, that requirement ended when the Biden administration allowed the general public well being emergency for the coronavirus to run out in Could.
The administration first started providing free at-home coronavirus exams by the Postal Service early final 12 months after the Omicron variant triggered instances to soar. Greater than 600 million exams had been distributed earlier than officers halted this system late that summer time, citing a scarcity of funding. The administration then resumed providing exams late final 12 months earlier than halting this system once more this spring.
The announcement on Wednesday got here as President Biden’s well being secretary, Xavier Becerra, tried to drum up curiosity within the newly permitted coronavirus vaccines by getting his personal Covid and flu pictures at a CVS pharmacy in Washington. The Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention really useful final week that each one Individuals 6 months and older obtain not less than one dose of the reformulated vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.
With the chief executives of Pfizer and Moderna standing beside him, Mr. Becerra invoked his personal mom, who’s about to show 90 and, he mentioned, has not had Covid-19.
“I really feel comfy, having gotten the pictures, that I may hug and kiss my mom and never be chargeable for getting her sick,” he mentioned, including, “Nobody is secure till everyone seems to be secure.”
