{"id":51988,"date":"2022-01-14T18:57:43","date_gmt":"2022-01-14T23:57:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=51988"},"modified":"2022-01-14T18:57:50","modified_gmt":"2022-01-14T23:57:50","slug":"americans-can-order-free-at-home-rapid-covid-19-tests-on-jan-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2022\/01\/americans-can-order-free-at-home-rapid-covid-19-tests-on-jan-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Americans can order free at-home, rapid COVID-19 tests on Jan. 19"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Americans will be able to order free, at-home COVID-19 tests from a new federal website starting next Wednesday, the White House announced<\/a>, as the Biden administration launches its distribution of the 1 billion tests it plans to buy this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What You Need To Know<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Americans will be able to order free, at-home COVID-19 tests from a new federal website starting next Wednesday, the White House announced<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tests will usually take 7 to 12 days to ship, the White House said, but Americans can begin requesting them on COVIDTests.gov<\/a> on Jan. 19; administration officials said shipping could speed up over time<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Americans can order four free tests per residential address at the start of the program, and the Biden administration will then work to procure the second half billion tests to add to the federal website<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Biden administration will also launch a call line \u201cto help those unable to access the website to place orders\u201d and work with community-based organizations to support the highest-risk communities in requesting tests<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tests will usually take 7 to 12 days to ship, the White House said, but Americans can begin requesting them on COVIDTests.gov<\/a> on Jan. 19. They will also ship for free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTens of millions\u201d of tests are on hand, and half a billion will be available for ordering starting next Wednesday, one senior administration official said. The Biden administration has now finalized contracts for the purchase of 420 million tests of the first 500 million since they announced the plan on Dec. 21.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI’d say we’ve done that on an extremely rapid timeline,\u201d one official said, calling it \u201can unprecedentedly large purchase.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Americans can order four free tests per residential address at the start of the program, and the Biden administration will then work to procure the second half billion tests to add to the federal website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Joe Biden has been criticized for not securing a nationwide supply of rapid tests earlier and before the winter surge of the highly infectious omicron variant, and he announced on Thursday his plan to increase the government’s purchase to 1 billion rapid tests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But with the tests unlikely to arrive before late January, people will need to plan ahead. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend<\/a> self-testing when you have been exposed or potentially exposed to the virus, or when you’re preparing to gather indoors with a large group of people. A positive test means you are likely infected with COVID-19, the CDC says, but health experts recommend “serial” testing, or testing multiple times, to increase your result’s accuracy since rapid tests aren’t as sensitive to the omicron strain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCertainly if you\u2019re going to gather with family, if you\u2019re going to a gathering where people are immunocompromised or where they\u2019re elderly or where you have people who might be unvaccinated or poorly protected from a vaccine that might be an opportunity you want to test,\u201d said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the CDC director, on Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Explaining the longer shipping timeline, senior administration officials said it could speed up over time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs the program ramps up, we expect that timeline will shorten,\u201d one official said, later adding: \u201cThe program is intended to really ensure that people have at-home rapid tests available in the weeks ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All told, the purchase and distribution of the initial 500 million tests is expected to cost the U.S. government $4 billion, they estimated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Officials didn\u2019t say what time the website would launch next Wednesday but seemed confident it wouldn\u2019t crash, noting that the U.S. Digital Service \u2014 which was created after Healthcare.gov \u2014 has been partnering with the U.S. postal service to \u201cload test\u201d the site and prepare for the launch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The postal service will oversee the delivery of the tests via First Class mail for the contiguous United States and via Priority Mail to Alaska, Hawaii and U.S. territories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Biden administration will also launch a call line \u201cto help those unable to access the website to place orders\u201d and work with community-based organizations to support the highest-risk communities in requesting tests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Officials noted that another federal effort to make free tests available through insurance reimbursement goes into effect on Saturday, Jan. 15. Covered Americans can purchase up to eight tests per month and get them 100% reimbursed with their private insurance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Medicaid programs already cover testing and doctor-ordered tests are already covered as well, plus the administration has worked to expand free testing sites to more than 20,000 locations around the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Americans will be able to order free, at-home COVID-19 tests from a new federal website starting next Wednesday, the White House announced, as the Biden administration launches its distribution of the… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":51989,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,32],"tags":[1024,1025],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51988"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51988"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51988\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51990,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51988\/revisions\/51990"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}