Feds bring back free at-home COVID tests

Free at-home COVID tests were made available again from the federal government starting Monday, as the current uptick in infections continues.

“Beginning Sept. 25, every U.S. household can again place an order to receive four more free COVID-19 rapid tests delivered directly to their home,” the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says on its website.

They will come to everyone’s door via the U.S. Postal Service. Tests can be ordered from COVIDTests.gov, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

Twelve manufacturers across seven states are making 200 million over-thecounter tests to bolster government stockpiles and meet public demand, Health and Human Services stated. Funding comes from $600 million that the Biden administration approved last week aimed at preventing test shortages during the expected bump in COVID cases during the winter.

While the emergency stage of the pandemic officially ended in May, the continued evolution of the novel coronavirus means COVID will continue to circulate, experts say.

“We know, if past is prologue, it’ll circulate to a higher degree and spread, and cases will go up in the fall and winter seasons,” said Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary Dawn O’Connell. “Anticipating that that would be true again, or something similar, we want to make sure the American people have these tools.”

The website will take orders through the holidays and might even stay open longer, depending on the number of cases, O’Connell added. This is the fifth time that free at-home tests have been offered.

Meanwhile, the expiration date on many tests has been extended by a year, said O’Connell and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The novel coronavirus was declared a pandemic in March 2020 and went on to kill nearly 7 million people worldwide, more than 1 million of them in the U.S., according to World Health Organization statistics.