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The Biden administration said Friday it will resume providing free at-home COVID-19 tests to American households in late September as the virus gains a stronger foothold in the United States this summer.
Americans will soon be able to use the COVIDtests.gov website to request four free tests, administration officials told reporters during a briefing. The tests will be able to detect currently circulating COVID variants, most of which are descendants of the highly contagious Omicron JN.1 variant.
“These tests will help keep families and their loved ones safe this fall and winter,” said Dawn O’Connell, assistant secretary for preparedness and response at the Department of Health and Human Services, during the briefing. “This is the seventh time in the past three years that the Biden-Harris Administration has given families the opportunity to request free, over-the-counter COVID-19 tests” through the government’s website.
O'Connell said the government program has provided more than 1.8 billion free, over-the-counter COVID tests to Americans since its inception in 2021.
The government is relaunching the program amid a relatively large spike in Covid cases this summer, and ahead of the fall and winter, when the virus typically spreads at higher levels each year. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “high” or “very high” levels of Covid have been detected in wastewater in nearly every U.S. state.
But the government decided to reopen the program in late September because that's when more Americans start traveling and gathering indoors with loved ones.
“As people start to travel, as they start to gather with friends and family over the holidays, we want to have these four tests available to them at that time,” David Boucher, director of infectious disease preparedness and response at the Department of Health and Human Services, told reporters during the briefing.
By then, the last round of Covid vaccines will be Pfizer and Moderna The new vaccines will be available to most Americans at pharmacies, health clinics and other locations across the country. The Food and Drug Administration approved the vaccines, which target a branch of the JN.1 gene called KP.2, on Thursday.
Testing is a crucial tool for protection as Covid cases rise again. But laboratory-based PCR tests — the traditional way to detect Covid — have become more expensive and less accessible for some Americans since the US government ended the public health emergency in May of last year.
However, some local health clinics and community sites offer home testing to the public at no cost.