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The Biden administration announced Friday that it will resume offering free, at-home coronavirus tests to American families in late September, as the virus gains a stronger foothold in the U.S. this summer.
Americans will soon be able to use it translation: Request 4 Free TestsA government official said at a press conference: Coronavirus Mutations Most of the variants currently circulating are descendants of the highly infectious Omicron variant JN.1.
“These tests will help keep families and loved ones safe this fall and winter,” Dawn O’Connell, undersecretary for preparedness and response at the Department of Health and Human Services, said at the briefing. “This marks the seventh time in the last three years that the Biden-Harris Administration has given families the opportunity to order a commercially available COVID-19 test kit at no cost through a government website.”
The government program has provided more than 1.8 billion free, over-the-counter COVID-19 tests to Americans since the start of 2021, O’Connell said.
The government relaunched the program after a relatively steep rise in COVID-19 cases this summer and before the fall and winter, when virus infection levels typically rise. Nearly every state in the U.S. has detected “high” or “very high” levels of COVID-19 in wastewater. data From the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But the administration decided to restart the program in late September, a time when more Americans will begin traveling and gathering indoors with loved ones.
“As people start traveling and as people start gathering with friends and family over the holidays, we want to have the four tests available at that time,” David Boucher, director of infectious disease prevention and response at the Department of Health and Human Services, told reporters at a briefing.
By that time, the latest coronavirus vaccine will be administered. Pfizer and Moderna The vaccine will be made available to most Americans at pharmacies, clinics and other locations across the country. The Food and Drug Administration approved the vaccine on Thursday, which targets KP.2, a derivative of JN.1.
As COVID-19 cases rise again, testing has become a vital prevention tool, but since the U.S. government ended the public health emergency last May, PCR tests, the traditional way to detect COVID-19, have become expensive and inaccessible to some Americans.
Still, some local health clinics and community sites are offering free at-home testing to the public.
