As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to drag on, with cases rising or plateauing, President Joe Biden announced that his administration will provide all Americans with a means of monitoring their infection status: On Wednesday the president declared that his administration is setting aside $600 million for the manufacturing and distribution of new at-home COVID-19 tests. On September 25th, the Biden administration will also restart a website, COVIDtests.org, that allows Americans to order up to four tests for free for each household, delivered by the U.S. Postal Service.
"Whether or not people are done with it, we know the virus is there, we know that it's circulating. We know, if past is prologue, it'll circulate to a higher degree and spread, and cases will go up in the fall and winter seasons," Dawn O'Connell, assistant secretary for preparedness and response at HHS, said in a statement. "Anticipating that that would be true again, or something similar, we want to make sure the American people have these tools."
"Guess all doubts are gone whether the White House takes the new #COVID threat seriously or not," Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist and health economist at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health and a senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists, posted on X (formerly Twitter). "Biden WH basically admits that #CovidIsNotOver." Given that COVID is still the fourth leading cause of death in the United States, it definitely seems like the risk of death and illness, including long COVID, is here to stay, at least for the near future. Luckily, medications like Paxlovid still help and testing can inform folks if they have COVID or just allergies.
