One of these days, with any luck, we may actually be rid of this infernal COVID-19 nonsense once and for all…but not yet.
As Americans head indoors for the cooler months, fears of this increased proximity to one another has health officials concerned about a resurgence of the virus. This has the White House preemptively preparing to send test kits out to American households free of charge.
The Biden administration plans to reopen a partnership with the U.S. Postal Service to mail free at-home Covid-19 tests to households that request them, four people familiar with the matter told POLITICO.
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The revival of one of the government’s most popular and widely used pandemic programs comes as the administration prepares for another potential winter surge.
The original program was perhaps a bit too popular.
Biden officials paused the USPS program in early September over concerns that the high demand for free tests had put the administration on pace to deplete its stockpile before winter. They warned at the time the government could not afford to purchase more tests absent new funding from Congress, and needed to preserve the “limited remaining supply” for future Covid-19 surges. More than 600 million at-home tests had gone out to households across the country by the time the program was halted.
COVID cases have been on the rise in the US over the course of the last several weeks, as health officials continue to warn of other winter scourges such as flu and RSV making the rounds.
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