On January 13, the Biden administration announced that they would be purchasing another 500 million at-home COVID tests for Americans. That amount is in addition to the plan to purchase 500 million tests detailed last month.
Biden said that, in the next week, a website would launch that will allow Americans to order free tests. It is still unclear when the at-home COVID tests would be physically available. Biden also mentioned that the White House plans to make high-quality masks available for free (details forthcoming next week).
Meanwhile, the United States Postal Service (USPS) is gearing up to prepare for the mailing of at-home tests. USPS will hire seven thousand temporary workers at forty-three centers around the country to help facilitate the shipping and handling, according to Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union.
Dimondstein declared, “We’re very excited, and at the end of the day, we’re here to serve the people of the country; and, we’re dedicated to that mission,” said Dimondstein. “Postal workers are ready to rock and roll,” he enthused.
The administration urges Americans to get vaccinated and secure booster shots to prevent the further spread of the disease. President Biden articulated that six new federal medical teams will be dispatched to six different states to help our overwhelmed hospitals.
Those hospitals include: University Hospital in Newark, University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque, Rhode Island Hospital in Providence, Henry Ford Hospital near Detroit, Coney Island Hospital in Brooklyn, and the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio.