Once again, the federal government will provide free COVID-19 test kits to people across the U.S. to prepare for the respiratory virus season during the fall and winter months, health officials announced Friday.
The site COVIDtest.gov will begin taking orders in late September, said Dawn O’Connell, assistant secretary for preparedness and response at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Americans can order up to four tests per household to be sent directly to their homes.
“Don’t forget to use these free tests when you’re concerned that you or your loved one may have COVID,” O’Connell said. “They will do no one any good sitting in your medicine cabinet.”
She said the tests will be able to detect the dominant variants that are currently circulating. As of Friday, the subvariant KP.3.1.1 made up nearly 37% of COVID-19 cases in the U.S., and KP.3 made up over 16%, according to CDC data.
This is the seventh time in the past three years the administration has provided free test kits to Americans, according to O’Connell. About 900 million home tests have been distributed through the program in partnership with the U.S. Postal Service.
The announcement comes a day after the Food and Drug Administration approved an updated COVID-19 vaccine formulation from Pfizer and Moderna. Shots are expected to arrive at distribution sites across the country in the coming days. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends this year’s doses for everyone 6 months and older. They will target the JN.1 subvariant KP.2.
To prepare for the season, the CDC also will distribute $62 million in “unused vaccine contract money” to local and state health departments to provide updated vaccines to people who are uninsured and underinsured, an agency spokesperson said.
The funding is likely aimed at helping to cover the loss of the $1.1 billion Bridge Access Program, which ends Aug. 31. That program allowed uninsured and underinsured people in the U.S. to get free COVID-19 vaccines and provided 1.5 million people with shots after it launched last September.
COVID has been on the rise this summer, with hospitalizations jumping from 1.1 per 100,000 people at the beginning of May to 4.4 at the beginning of August. The number of deaths has also risen during that period.
Contributing: Karen Weintraub, USA TODAY; Reuters
Adrianna Rodriguez can be reached at adrodriguez@usatoday.com.
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