The Biden administration announced on Friday that it will resume offering free at-home Covid-19 tests to American households starting in late September, because the virus spread more widely within the United States this summer.
Americans will soon give you the option COVIDtests.gov request 4 free testsgovernment officials told reporters during a briefing. The tests will give you the option to Covid variants which can be currently in circulation, most of that are descendants of the highly contagious omicron variant JN.1.
“These tests will help protect families and their loved ones this fall and winter,” said Dawn O'Connell, assistant secretary for preparedness and response on the Department of Health and Human Services, in the course of the briefing. “This is the seventh time in the last three years that the Biden-Harris administration has given families the opportunity to order the over-the-counter Covid-19 tests for free” through the federal government's website.
According to O'Connell, the federal government program has provided Americans with greater than 1.8 billion free, over-the-counter Covid tests because it launched in 2021.
The government is restarting this system since the variety of Covid cases has increased relatively sharply this summer and within the run-up to the autumn and winter, when the virus normally spreads more strongly every year. Almost every US state has found a “high” or “very high” level of Covid in wastewater, in accordance with Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
However, the federal government decided to resume this system at the top of September because that’s when more Americans might be traveling again and meeting with family members indoors.
“As people begin to travel again and gather with friends and family over the holidays, we want them to have those four tests available at that time,” David Boucher, director of infectious disease preparedness and response at HHS, told reporters in the course of the press conference.
By then, the last round of Covid vaccinations from Pfizer And Modern might be available to most Americans in pharmacies, health centers and other locations across the country. The Food and Drug Administration authorized the shots, which goal a strain of JN.1 called KP.2, on Thursday.
Testing is a vital tool for cover as Covid infections begin to rise again. But for the reason that U.S. government ended the general public health emergency in May last 12 months, laboratory PCR tests – the normal approach to detecting Covid – have grow to be costlier and fewer accessible for some Americans.
However, certain local health centers and community facilities are offering free at-home testing to the general public.
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