In a speech planned for Tuesday, Pres. Biden is expected to tackle one of the biggest sources of frustration this holiday season: the massive shortage of at-home COVID tests.
In a nationwide speech Tuesday, President Joe Biden was expected to tackle one of the biggest sources of frustration this holiday season -- the massive shortage of at-home COVID tests.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this fall recommended the use of rapid at-home tests ahead of holiday gatherings to prevent the spread of COVID, in addition to vaccinations and boosters. Within a short drive of the White House, lines of people waiting for free tests snaked around buildings on a brisk December day. Unable to find at-home testing kits, Washington residents said they were willing to wait in the cold if it meant keeping loved ones safe.
"We have capacity but when everybody is essentially looking for a test in the exact same moment, the infrastructure just crushes under the weight of that," said John Brownstein, the chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor. For its part, the White House says it's beefed back up its testing efforts, making 50 million tests available to community health centers and rural health sites, in addition to the 20,000 free testing sites across the country that will offer 500 million tests per month. Also, a new plan calls for insurance companies to cover the costs of rapid tests after mid-January.
Instead, at-home rapid COVID tests have become wildly popular, a kind of holy grail of the holiday season because of the instant results, ease of use and privacy.
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