The US Department of Health and Human Services announced Wednesday that it will resume a program that offers free Covid-19 home tests to Americans.
The program was halted in May, after the Covid-19 public health emergency ended, to conserve supply. “Starting September 25, we will once again begin our program to provide Americans with an opportunity to request tests,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said at a Washington CVS Pharmacy, where he received COVID-19 and flu vaccines.
Americans can order four free tests per household from Covidtests.gov. The US government has delivered more than 755 million free Covid-19 tests to people who ordered them through Covidtests.gov.
The tests that will be available soon are valid until the end of 2023 and will have instructions on how to check extended expiration dates, HHS said in a statement Wednesday. Many home COVID-19 tests have expiration dates that are longer than what is shown on the package.
HHS and its Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response also said they will invest $600 million in 12 US COVID-19 test makers to boost manufacturing capacity and buy about 200 million over-the-counter COVID-19 tests for federal use. The funding will go to manufacturers in New Jersey, California, Texas, Washington, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Delaware.
“The Biden-Harris Administration, in partnership with domestic manufacturers, has made great strides in addressing vulnerabilities in the U.S. supply chain by reducing our reliance on overseas manufacturing,” Becerra said in the statement.
“These critical investments will strengthen our nation’s production levels of domestic at-home COVID-19 rapid tests and help mitigate the spread of the virus.”
Covid-19 hospitalizations have increased in the United States since July, with weekly admissions now more than three times higher than they were two months ago. According to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 20,500 people in the US were hospitalized with COVID-19 during the week ending September 9 — about 8% higher than the previous week.