The funding will produce new at-home tests and restart a website to allow Americans to order four free tests per household
The Biden administration announced Wednesday that it is providing $600m in funding to produce new, at-home Covid-19 tests and is restarting a website allowing Americans to again order up to four free tests per household – aiming to prevent possible shortages during a rise in coronavirus cases that has typically come during colder months.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) says orders can be placed at covidtests.gov starting 25 September, and that no-cost tests will be delivered for free by the United States Postal Service (USPS).
Twelve manufacturers that employ hundreds of people in seven states from California to Maryland have been awarded funding and will produce 200m over-the-counter tests to replenish federal stockpiles for government use, in addition to producing enough tests to meet demand for tests ordered online, the department said.
Typical half measures. 4 tests per household isnt close to enough, and the fact you have to order them rather than having them just sent to taxpayers homes further shows the funding for this isn’t nearly enough to cover tests for the entire country.
Oh yeah, one more thing: is this gonna be the same website that crashed 5 times before it let me order my tests, tests that never in fact arrived?
Automatically sending them to homes would be extremely wasteful in a country where some half of the populace would never bother using them. Half would go straight in the trash.
First, I disagree with your numbers. Remember, these aren’t vaccinations, they are tests. I know of very few anti-tester rallies.
Second, i especially disagree with your assertion that there might be a problem with even (for for slipslope purposes) a million dollars wasted if it saved a single American life.
Onto my own rant/rave, the complete garbage that is tv news in this country notwithstanding, i lay full blame of the distrust in the cdc and sound (or otherwise) medicine on the government’s shoulders. Their mandates, when they weren’t contradicting themselves clearly catered to business’ interests over human lives.
Even though i understand why, as we are surrounded by constant messages all saying that *somehow the complete lack of government mandated COVID protection is our fault, I still get frustrated when i see what i think is people blaming the victims.
US citizens have, willfully or otherwise, been failed spectacularly.
I’m going to have to disagree with you. There are a lot of people who don’t bother to test themselves because they don’t think COVID is a big deal in any way.
Also folks who show symptoms but refuse to take a test because they’d lose money from time off work, since we all decided that safety nets and caring for the populace is stupid and communist so people have to juggle rent and self reporting
I used to test, but now that I know none of my friends or family don’t get sick there’s no point really. I can tell if I have vivid because I get a mild back soreness for an hour in the morning.
I think you might mean you know your friends and family don’t get sick… If none of your friends or family don’t get sick, that means all of them get sick.
4 was plenty for my family to find out we were COVID positive. We ended up buying replacement tests because they weren’t free anymore, but the free ones worked as intended.
Im not trying to pick on you, but that is exactly what I’m saying: 4 isn’t enough. And i seriously mean it when i say i’m glad you can afford more tests, but not everyone can.
You did the right thing, spent what you could afford and bought more tests. Did you test as often as you would have if the tests were cheaper or even free?
Considering there’s no reason to test when you’re not having symptoms and that was the only time we had symptoms, I don’t think I would have tested more often.
What’s your definition of “enough”? Of course it’s not enough to allow everyone to be 100% confident they don’t have covid if they come down with the sniffles. But if you have known COVID exposure, it allows you to test at the recommended 5-day mark to see if you have it yourself. That probably would cover around 80% of needs.