White House Makes Free COVID Tests Available for the Holidays — Here’s How To Get Yours
Written by
Yaël Bizouati-Kennedy
Edited by
Daria Uhlig
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Ahead of the holidays and at a time when traveling and gatherings abound, the White House is making free COVID-19 tests available once again.
Every home in the U.S. is eligible to order an additional four free at-home tests beginning Nov. 20, according to the government’s COVIDTests.gov website.
The government re-opened its program on Sept. 25. Individuals who did not order tests this fall may place two orders, for a total of eight tests.
“Your order of COVID tests is completely free — you won’t even pay for shipping,” according to the website.
Here’s what you need to know about your order:
You can order tests by going on COVIDTests.gov. Clicking the “Order Free At-Home Tests” button directs you to a U.S. Postal Service site. Fill out the form, and orders will ship free starting the week of Nov. 27. If you haven’t ordered tests since the program reopened on Sept. 25, you’ll see a message after you place your first order that you’re eligible to place a second one.
There is a notice stating that “tests may show ‘expired’ dates on the box, but the FDA has extended those dates.”
According to Axios, the Biden administration has distributed more than 1.6 billion free tests, including more than 800 million tests through the COVIDTests.gov website.
And as ABC News reported, since September, 14.5 million households have ordered tests, and 58 million tests have been shipped, according to the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, or ASPR, a department within the Department of Health and Human Services.
“We’re going to see families gather with older loved ones and younger loved ones and it’s important that they are able to protect their loved ones from COVID as we head into the winter months,” Dawn O’Connell, head of ASPR, told ABC News.
“So we think opening [COVIDTests.Gov] up right before the winter holidays really kick in is going to be very important for the American people, to provide this access for the free four tests again,” she added.
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