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The federal program used over the past two winters to send free COVID tests to American homes will be operational again in the coming days, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said Wednesday.
Becerra made the announcement at a CVS pharmacy in Washington, D. C. , while receiving his updated COVID and flu vaccine. Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finalized its process of rolling out the newest COVID vaccine, aimed at adapting to circulating variants. And pharmacies started offering it a few days later.
The CovidTests. Gov site will officially relaunch on Sept. 25 and each family will be required to request four free immediate tests, according to the Strategic Preparedness and Response Administration (ASPR), the component of HHS that manages federal COVID stockpiles. Tests.
The free online home testing page has been offered intermittently since the winter of 2022, when the Omicron variant increased cases nationwide.
At the time, President Joe Biden pledged to distribute one billion free immediate tests to mitigate growing demand and a battered production industry.
But the site temporarily shut down this fall due to a protracted political fight over COVID funding. Administration officials said they needed to suspend testing in case they didn’t get agreement from Republicans to allocate more money, which they didn’t get.
Still, the site relaunched in December when cases started rising again and then shut down last June.
The government will now restart CovidTests. Gov in time to increase cases this winter.
“We need them to be able to use those tests in this viral season — fall, winter, viral respiration season,” Becerra said.
The checks will come from a $600 million investment in 12 other domestic check makers, which will produce about two hundred million checks to augment the Federal Reserve. The evidence requested from CovidTests. Gov will be drawn from this reserve.
Funding for the loose will come from cash left over from an earlier COVID companion bill. Although the debt ceiling agreement reached over the summer between President Joe Biden and Republicans has recouped about $30 billion in unspent COVID relief budget, officials said there is still enough budget left to fill inventory this fall.
Officials said they don’t yet have an estimate of how many tests they expect Americans to request, given the easing of demands for COVID precautions. About 755 million tests have been distributed on the online page over the past two years.
But if there is strong demand going forward, the government’s $600 million investment in U. S. -based COVID corporations will continue to grow. The U. S. supply will also be used to heat the origin lines and start the production process, said Dawn O’Connell, ASPR’s director of allocation.
“Manufacturing COVID-19 tests in the United States strengthens our preparedness for the upcoming fall and winter seasons, reduces our dependence on other countries, and provides jobs for hardworking Americans,” O’Connell said.
“ASPR’s investments in those national brands will increase the availability of testing in the future,” he said in a statement.
COVID-19 hospitalizations continue in the United States, according to the knowledge of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
For the week ending Sept. 9, the data showed hospitalizations increased 7. 7 percent, from 19,068 to 20,538 weekly hospitalizations, a likely underestimate, because it’s the least knowledge you can have without the ongoing public health emergency.
ABC News’ Mary Kekatos contributed to this report.
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