The federal government is bringing back its program in which people can order free Covid-19 tests and get them delivered—just months after the initial program was paused—as hospitalizations and deaths continue to rise.
The Biden administration is restarting its program to mail out at home COVID-19 tests and will ... [+]
Ordering will resume on September 25 and there is a limit of one pack—containing four tests—per residential address.
Orders can be placed at www.COVIDtests.gov and are delivered by the U.S. postal service, and the first rounds are expected to be shipped the week of October 2.
The Department of Health and Human Services said the tests are meant to be used through the end of this year, Axios reported, and the government expects to get about 200 million new tests.
Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra announced the return of the program to reporters on Wednesday while getting his booster shot, saying Biden “wanted to make sure that no one can go without tests.”
775 million. That’s how many tests were sent out through the program before, reaching more than two-thirds of American households, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
The government began mailing free tests to households in January 2022, but paused the program last September out of fear it was running out of tests before a potential winter surge. The Biden administration relaunched the program in December 2022 before suspending it again on June 1 to “preserve remaining supply.”
The revamp of the program comes as Covid-19 hospitalizations and deaths have been steadily rising nationwide. In the most recent week, hospitalizations were up 7.7% and deaths increased 4.5%, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. ABC News reported that this is the first time hospitalizations have surpassed 20,000 since March.