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The Biden administration said Friday it will resume offering free at-home Covid-19 tests to American households in late September as the virus has gained a stronger foothold in the United States this summer.
Americans will soon be able to use COVIDtests.gov to order four free tests, government 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 JN.1 omicron variant.
“These tests will help keep families and their loved ones safe this fall and winter season,” 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 over-the-counter Covid-19 tests for free” through the government's website.
The government program has provided more than 1.8 billion free, over-the-counter Covid tests to Americans since it began in 2021, according to O'Connell.
The government is relaunching the program amid a relatively large surge in Covid cases this summer, and ahead of the fall and winter when the virus typically spreads at higher levels each year. A “high” or “very high” level of Covid has been detected in wastewater in nearly every U.S. state, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But the government decided to reopen the program in late September because that is when more Americans are beginning to travel and gather indoors with loved ones.
“As people start traveling, getting together with friends and family for the holidays, we want them to have those four tests available at that time,” David Boucher, HHS's director of infectious disease preparedness and response, told reporters during the briefing.
By then, the latest round of Covid vaccines will be Pfizer and Modern They will be available to most Americans at pharmacies, health clinics and other locations across the country. The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved those vaccines, which target a variant of the JN.1 strain called KP.2.
Testing is a critical tool for protection at a time when COVID-19 infections are once again on the rise. But laboratory-based PCR tests — the traditional method for detecting COVID-19 — have become more expensive and less accessible to some Americans since the U.S. government ended the public health emergency in May of last year.
Still, some local health clinics and community sites are offering home testing to the public at no cost.
