The Biden administration has restarted its program that provides free COVID-19 at-home tests through the mail to address a potential surge as part of its “Winter Preparedness Plan.”
Beginning on Dec. 15, U.S. households can order four free at-home tests from CovidTests.gov. The White House plans to start shipping orders during the week of Dec. 19.
The tests also will be available at major food banks, according to a statement.
The program was suspended in September “because Congress hasn’t provided additional funding to replenish the nation’s stockpile of tests,” the CovidTests website reported at the time.
This week, the Biden administration stated that it has reallocated American Rescue Plan funds to purchase additional at-home tests.
“There remains an urgent need for additional COVID funding to help us stay prepared in the face of an unpredictable virus,” a Biden administration senior official told reporters. “At the end of the day, we had to repurpose some of our existing money to focus on this important initiative as we are seeing cases go up. These are always hard choices, and we have to make trade-offs.”
In a statement detailing the winter preparedness plan, the White House stated, “While COVID-19 is not the disruptive force it once was, the virus continues to evolve, and cases are on the rise again as families are spending more time indoors and gathering for the holidays.
“Throughout the COVID-19 response, this administration has been prepared for whatever the virus throws our way—and this moment is no different.”
Making free at-home, rapid COVID-19 tests available through COVIDTests.gov and food banks and distributing more free tests at “trusted locations,” such as schools, community health centers, rural health clinics, long-term care facilities, and more than 6,500 Department of Housing and Urban Development-assisted rental housing properties serving seniors, is part of the Winter Preparedness Plan.
The Biden administration also announced on Dec. 15 that Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra is sending a letter to all governors “outlining key actions that he would like state leaders to take as they prepare for increased cases and hospitalizations this winter and reminding them of federal supports that are available for their COVID-19 responses.”
Setting up additional mobile and pop-up vaccination sites and surge testing sites are among the services available, according to the Biden administration.
Test to Treat sites, where people can get free virus tests and “get prescribed and dispensed safe, effective COVID-19 treatments right on site if they test positive and treatment is appropriate for them,” are also offered.
As part of the plan, the Biden administration will collaborate with communities to “open pop-up and/or mobile vaccination sites.”
Opening as many as 800 pop-up clinics per week in Los Angeles County, expanding at-home administration of vaccines and free home delivery of treatments in New York, and increasing Chicago’s at-home vaccine administration program are among the elements of the collaboration, according to the administration.
Guidance for nursing home and long-term care facility administrators regarding actions to reduce COVID-19 infections, hospitalization, and deaths will be offered.
“As expected, we’re seeing COVID cases rising in parts of the country following Thanksgiving. And while COVID isn’t the disruptive force it once was, we know that the virus will circulate more quickly and easily as folks gather indoors for the winter holiday season,” the senior administration official said.
There’s little mention of masks in the plan, aside from promoting the previous initiatives of making millions of facial coverings available at pharmacies and grocery stores among other locations.
“We view masks to be just one important tool in an arsenal of tools that is part of a multi-pronged strategy to combat COVID,” the Biden administration senior official said.
As part of the year-end funding legislation, the White House has requested more than $9 billion in COVID-19 funding. That attempt has been met with strong Republican resistance.
On Oct. 15, Republican House leadership announced that when the party takes control of the chamber in January, House Republicans will seek testimony from dozens of Biden administration officials and experts about the origins of the CCP virus in China and U.S. funding for virus research at a laboratory in Wuhan, China.
Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) have released a list of 40 Biden administration officials and health experts whom they'll demand testimony from in 2023.
The list includes Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House’s chief medical adviser and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
“Discovering the origin of COVID-19 is vital to providing accountability and protecting Americans in the future,” Comer said in a statement.
“Mounting evidence points to the virus originating from a leak at the Wuhan lab. EcoHealth Alliance, a U.S. National Institutes of Health grantee, passed taxpayer funds to the Wuhan lab to conduct gain of function research on bat coronaviruses—research that may have started the pandemic.”
Jordan said Americans “deserve the facts and the truth” about the origins of the virus.
“COVID-19 disrupted our lives and livelihoods for over two years: kids couldn’t go to school, small businesses and churches were closed, our economy tanked, and our freedoms were restricted,” Jordan said.
“If we had known the truth about the virus’s origins, we could have combated the virus in a more meaningful way at the outset of the pandemic.”
