The Biden administration is preparing to begin accepting orders for free at-home COVID-19 testing starting Sept. 25, officials announced Wednesday. The government is also planning a new cash injection to boost domestic production of the test kits.
How to order free COVID tests
Four free tests are available for every household and can be requested through the government COVIDTests.gov Portal from Monday, September 25th
Tests will be shipped through the U.S. Postal Service beginning Oct. 2 and would not be directly affected by a potential government shutdown if Congress does not pass funding legislation by the end of the month.
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“We looked at what we had seen before with the increase in cases. We believe the ability to provide testing is just one important tool that we have and can provide,” said Dawn O’Connell, director of the Strategic Preparedness and Response Administration, which oversees the federal stockpile of tests .
The government had already offered free test kits last winter, but shipping via the website has been suspended since May in order to conserve testing supplies.
But officials have emphasized that other free testing options remain available to many communities, such as through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Increasing Community Access to Testing program at drugstores.
“We kept these in stock. We want people to have these tests in their medicine cabinets so they can use them now, rather than having them sitting in a stockpile somewhere. “So we really think it was just an important tool and we made an active decision to make it available now,” O’Connell said.
Four free antigen tests
The four home tests being shipped come from a supply that will remain usable through at least the end of the year, assuming the Food and Drug Administration gives the green light to extend the expiration date.
Authorities said COVID testing continues to work as well as it has for other newer variants, with the latest strains on the rise. This also includes the heavily mutated variant BA.2.86, which has been spotted worldwide and in several US states.
The free COVID tests on offer are antigen tests, which are generally cheaper and easier to use than some other at-home molecular or lab-based options, but are more likely to produce false negative test results – meaning that they miss some cases where they test a person is actually infected.
After studies last year of false negative antigen test results, the FDA urged Americans who feel sick or have been exposed to the virus to retest every 48 hours if they receive an initial negative result.
More tests could be made available for order later this year, O’Connell said, if there are enough supplies or a major surge stimulates demand.
“We reserve the right to increase this if necessary if we see a different surge than before, or if a new variant emerges and we need access to testing more quickly. The wonderful thing about it.” “A supply is, we can use it,” said O’Connell.
Millions of dollars to produce more COVID tests
ASPR is preparing to ship millions of previously purchased tests that are now about to expire, and it says it is also distributing $600 million in new incentives to a dozen manufacturers to boost production of COVID-19 tests in to continue in the USA
Combined, the contract awards also amount to approximately 200 million new over-the-counter COVID-19 tests that the Biden administration will purchase for its future needs.
That will allow test makers to remain a “warm base” even after a drop in demand, O’Connell said, and be able to ramp up more quickly in the event of unexpected increases. That was a lesson learned from the initial surge of the Omicron variant, which led to a shortage of kits.
“The lines will continue to run. You won’t be throttled. They will continue to do testing as we roll them off the assembly line,” O’Connell said.
ASPR opened the door for all companies to begin discussions about that money, O’Connell said. Testing companies will still be able to initially supply kits to the private market, such as pharmacies and online retailers, and then transition to sending kits to the federal supply as demand wanes.
The largest prize – $167 million – goes to California-based iHealth, which was also a key supplier in the last wave of free COVID-19 tests.
Some new testing companies are also among the recipients, while others – such as test makers Abbott and Roche, which received millions earlier during the pandemic – were not mentioned.
“We negotiated the terms based on their capacity, based on what we thought they could sustain, based on their willingness to maintain that. And all of these factors went into the way these contracts were negotiated. “We’re very proud of the 12 that showed up,” she said.
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