The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced on Wednesday that the U.S. government will once again offer free at-home COVID-19 testing starting on September 25. As with previous free testing programs, these test kits will include four tests and come with instructions to verify the extended validity period.
The government ended its most recent free testing kit program on May 31 as cases and hospitalizations declined, but the situation has reversed again and hospitalizations have been rising steadily since July, according to The New York Times' COVID-19 tracking data.
According to information released by HHS, the White House has invested $600 million in a new round of free test kits, and will purchase test kits from 12 U.S. manufacturers, which is enough to cover 200 million over-the-counter tests.
If demand is high enough, manufacturers could sell the tests directly to retailers before the government does. The article points out that although hospitalizations have increased, they remain low compared with the tens of thousands of coronavirus-related deaths per week during the previous phase of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Pfizer and Moderna's new monovalent vaccines are now available after being approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration earlier this month. The new dosage form is based on the Omicron variant of the virus rather than the original strain. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) currently recommends that people over 6 months of age who have received three doses of the mRNA vaccine receive this vaccine.