Americans have placed 68 million orders for four free rapid tests per family, but about 46 percent of the tests still available<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n
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MONDAY, Feb. 28, 2022 (HealthDay News) — As COVID-19 cases across the United States drop, nearly half of the 500 million free tests offered by the federal government have gone unused, according to the White House.<\/p>\n
Americans have placed 68 million orders for packages of four free rapid tests per family, but about 46 percent of the tests are still up for grabs, the Associated Press<\/em> reported. On the first day that the free tests were available in January, the covidtests.gov<\/a> website received more than 45 million orders, but fewer than 100,000 orders a day are coming in now, officials said.<\/p>\n Even though demand has declined, the White House will keep the program in place. “We totally intend to sustain this market,” Tom Inglesby, M.D., testing adviser to the COVID-19 response team, told the AP<\/em>. “We know the market is volatile and will come up and down with surges in variants.”<\/p>\n The Biden administration is also making free at-home tests available at community locations such as libraries and clinics. Testing will become more important with the easing of mask mandates, some experts say.<\/p>\n “If infection control is still our priority, testing is central,” Leana Wen, M.D., a former Baltimore health commissioner, told the AP<\/em>. “Four tests per household for one family will only last you one time. There should be enough tests for families to test twice a week.”<\/p>\n As another part of its testing push, the White House now requires insurers to cover eight free rapid tests per person, per month, and Medicare coverage will start in the spring.<\/p>\n