Due to a surge of the virus during the summer, Americans will once again be able to receive free at-home COVID-19 tests starting in late September.
According to information administration officials shared at a Friday briefing, individuals can visit COVIDtests.gov and request four complimentary tests.
The tests will identify the COVID variants currently in circulation, most of which are offspring of the highly transmissible omicron variant JN.1, reported CNBC.
“At-home COVID tests can be taken at home or in other locations and typically provide results within 30 minutes or less. While vaccination remains the best way to protect yourself from COVID-19, COVID tests can be administered to both vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals,” states the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.
However, strong opposition to the COVID-19 vaccines remains, with reports ranging from causing seizures in toddlers to persistent negative side effects and even death, per The Dallas Express.
Here is more of what CNBC reported regarding the relaunching of the complimentary tests:
“These tests will help keep families and their loved ones safe this fall and winter season,” Dawn O’Connell, an assistant secretary for preparedness and response at the Health and Human Services Department, said during the briefing. “This is the seventh time over the last three years that the Biden-Harris administration has given families the opportunity to order the over-the-counter Covid-19 tests for free” through the government’s website.
The government’s program has provided more than 1.8 billion free over-the-counter Covid tests to Americans since it started in 2021, according to O’Connell.
The government is relaunching the program amid a relatively large spike in Covid cases this summer, and ahead of the fall and winter, when the virus typically spreads at higher levels each year. There is a “high” or “very high” level of Covid being detected in wastewater in almost every U.S. state, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But the government decided to reopen the program in late September because it’s when more Americans begin to travel and gather indoors with loved ones.