By Matthew Kaufman
Staff Writer
Following President Joe Biden’s announcement last month that Americans would soon be able to order at-home Covid-19 tests for free from the federal government, the website covidtests.gov is now live and accepting orders for four free tests per household. Neither proof of citizenship nor a credit card is required to order the tests.
Though the site was officially slated to launch on Jan. 19, users were able to begin placing orders the day prior. The website notes that the tests will ship 7-12 days after ordering, which some experts say might be too late to have a meaningful impact against the slowing Omicron surge, according to the Associated Press.
In a press conference on Jan. 19, Biden admitted that the administration had been slow to expand testing in response to the Omicron variant, according to NPR. “Should we have done more testing earlier? Yes. But we're doing more now,” he said.
Currently, the tests are limited to a one time order of four per household, but as the AP reported, many experts are arguing that Americans must have consistent access to at-home tests in order for the strategy to be effective against Omicron.
“The playbook for rapid tests should look exactly like the playbook for vaccines,” Zoe McLaren, a health economist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, told the AP. “They’re both things that help keep cases down and help keep COVID under control.”
Following the rollout of the at-home tests, the Biden Administration also announced that N95 masks would be made available for free to Americans at local pharmacies and community health centers, in what the White House called the “largest deployment of personal protective equipment in U.S. history,” according to the New York Times. The masks, which will come from the Strategic National Stockpile of medical supplies, will be limited to three per person and be available beginning next week.
Dr. Ashish K. Jha, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, told the Times that he believed the free masks would have a marginal effect on the country’s pandemic response because not many Americans are interested in wearing N95s.
On Jan. 14, the CDC updated its masking recommendations to acknowledge that cloth masks do not offer as much protection as N95s against the coronavirus, especially the more transmissible Omicron variant. For most of the pandemic, the CDC had recommended that N95s be reserved for healthcare workers, but now that shortages of the masks have been resolved, the agency is officially saying that the general public can use them.
“I know that for some Americans, a mask is not always affordable or convenient to get,” Biden said. “I know we all wish that we could finally be done with wearing masks. I get it. But…they’re a really important tool to stop the spread, especially of a highly transmittable Omicron variant.”
Directly providing PPE and testing to every American is a strategy not previously tried in the country’s pandemic response, and time will tell if increasing access to these vital items will finally help life in America return to normal.
