In August, the federal authorities pumped the brakes its “free COVID take a look at equipment by mail” service, one of the crucial standard packages to come back out of the pandemic, over fears that the American public would deplete the nationwide stockpile of exams earlier than the onset of winter. On Thursday, the White Home introduced that it has restarted this system in cooperation with the US Postal Service, although households will solely obtain half as many exams as earlier than — 4 particular person fast antigen COVID-19 exams per family. We dwell within the single wealthiest nation within the historical past of the Earth.
When this system was initially paused, 600 million at-home exams had already been despatched to American households and, given the speed of distribution, the federal authorities would have wanted to return to Congress for extra funding to buy extra exams. In September, the White Home did simply that, asking for $22.4 billion in extra funding to battle COVID — amid gentle Summer time and Fall COVID seasons, Congress did nothing. The White Home then pared down its ask to $10 billion in a supplemental funding request in November. Dealing with strident opposition from Republicans on the problem, Congress continues to dither.
COVID circumstances reached their lowest in mid-October with simply 261,268 reported nationwide. That quantity has doubled prior to now two months, per the CDC. Amid what’s suspected could be the newest wave of the pandemic, the White Home has determined that the state of affairs is dire sufficient to warrant dipping again into the nationwide take a look at stockpile as a part of its Winter Preparedness Plan. You may order yours by means of the US Postal Service web page right here. Orders will start transport free the week of December nineteenth, 2022.
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