Starting Thursday new Covid tests will be made available free through the U.S. mail, as part of the White House’s plan to battle rising Covid cases, bracing for the coming winter weather.
Four new tests can be ordered per household at COVIDtests.gov. They will start to ship the week of December 19, a senior Biden Administration official told reporters on a conference call.
The Administration also said it’s putting personnel and gear such as ventilators and personal protective equipment (PPE) on standby, should hospitals and nursing staffs become overwhelmed as they had in earlier waves of the Covid pandemic. So far, there have been no such requests, the official said.
This is the fourth round of Covid rapid tests that the government has handed out this year. The White House had suspended the giveaways in September after Congress denied requests for more funding for the program.
The White House is also urging states and local governments to do more to encourage the public to get updated Covid-19 booster vaccines that target the variants like omicron.
A newly-released national survey, conducted by the COVID States Project, a consortium of universities that includes Northwestern, Harvard, Northeastern and Rutgers, has found that a majority of Americans have not received the latest Covid booster. The survey also found that 35% of respondents had tested positive for Covid more than once.
And of the survey respondents who’d tested positive for Covid in the past three months, 76% had used a rapid or at-home test.
