President Joe Biden is going to make 500 million at-home COVID-19 test kits available for free starting next month, in a move to try helping the country get through another pandemic winter as cases rage from the omicron variant.
People will be able to order the test kits online and the kits will be mailed to them. This is on top of the Biden administration’s plans to have health insurers reimburse policyholders for at-home tests they buy themselves.
The federal plan to provide free at-home tests will be in addition to the states and cities that are already distributing free at-home test kits. They include New York City, New Jersey and Massachusetts.
The new year is less than two weeks away, but that might seem like an eternity for people who are standing in line for tests at testing sites and have holiday plans they’d like to stick with. There are over-the-counter at-home COVID-19 test kits to buy, and demand for those is increasing.
There were more than 139 million test kit sales in the last full week of November, up from 95.3 million sales at the same point in October, according to NielsenIQ, a market research business.
It’s by no means assured the state and local governments already providing kits can get one to every person who wants them, but it’s good to know the options are out there.
Here are some examples of cities and states handing out free at-home COVID-19 test kits:
New York City is distributing 500,000 test kits and 1 million KN95 masks through community-based organizations. The organizations can apply for Abbott ABT, -0.25% BinaxNOW Self-Testing kits in monthly allotments of 50, 100 or another amount, according to an announcement.
New Jersey is offering saliva test kits to residents. In order to obtain results, the test user has to be observed on a Zoom ZM, +0.36% call with a “collection supervisor” from Vault Medical Services, the test provider that’s working with the state on the effort. Test supervision operations run seven days a week. Once the collection is observed, the person mails the sample.
As of Tuesday, more than 100,000 have been ordered since the program’s Dec. 13 announcement, a New Jersey Department of Health spokeswoman said. Test results come 24 to 48 hours after the specimen arrives at the lab and a second test cannot be ordered until the results arrive from the pending test, she said.
Massachusetts has 2.1 million test kits from iHealth Labs that are earmarked for 102 towns with high numbers of families living below the poverty level. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu posted on Twitter TWTR, +2.83% where city residents will be able to find free test kits. Cities like Lawrence and Worcester have been gearing up their own test kit distributions, according to NBC Boston.
New Hampshire was the first state to send free home test kits to residents who requested them, while supplies lasted, according to an announcement in late November. A first round of approximately 400,000 kits with 800,000 tests came and went in less than 24 hours, according to WMUR. Earlier this month, Gov. Chris Sununu said the state was working on distributing another batch of test kits.
The state was sending out the tests via a platform for free test kit distribution that a number of counties in Washington state are using. Those counties include Walla Walla County, Yakima County and Spokane County. As of Tuesday, public health authorities in those counties still had free test kits to mail out, according to the website.