WASHINGTON – The Biden administration is making some again free COVID-19 tests available to all US households as it publishes its contingency plans Coronavirus Cases ticking up this winter.
After a three-month break, the administration provides four rapid virus tests per household covidtests.gov from Thursday. COVID-19 cases have shown a significant spike after the Thanksgiving holiday, and further increases are forecast from indoor gatherings and travel around Christmas and New Year’s.
Cases have risen in 90% of the country, said White House COVID-19 coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha, during a briefing on Thursday. Deaths and hospitalizations are also on the rise, with nearly 3,000 deaths reported last week. Most of these have focused on people aged 65 and over, Jha said.
“We don’t want this winter to look like last winter or the winter before that,” Jha said.
As cases rise again, much of the United States is also grappling with other respiratory viruses heading into this winter with an influx of flu and RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus. Jha told reporters he was confident the worst of RSV – which had hit young children particularly hard – was over, but that flu cases were only just beginning to rise.
The administration is putting staff and equipment on standby should they be needed to help overwhelmed hospitals and care homes, as has been required in previous waves of the coronavirus. So far there have been no requests for help, but emergency teams, ventilators and personal protective equipment are ready, the White House said.
The government is also asking states and local governments to do more to encourage people to get the updated bivalent COVID-19 vaccines, which scientists believe are more effective in protecting against serious illness and death from the currently circulating variants. The administration is reiterating virus prevention and treatment best practices to nursing homes and long-term care facilities, and urges administrators, as well as governments, to encourage vulnerable populations to get the new shots. Less than half of all nursing home residents received their last booster shot, Jha said.
The planning comes as the government has struggled to convince most Americans to get the updated boosters, as cases and deaths have declined from pandemic highs and most people have welcomed a return to most of their pre-pandemic activities. Less than 14% of people over the age of 1 in the US received their last booster shot.
The White House said the new tests would come from the national stash, which still has reserves after the administration closed the test program for the home in September, citing a lack of funds from Congress. The administration is still asking Congress for billions more dollars to fight the virus.
The suspension of the free-at-home testing program this summer allowed the administration to save some free-at-home testing for the surge in cases this winter, Jha said.
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Associated Press writer Amanda Seitz contributed to this report.
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