Joe Biden pledges 500m free Covid tests for Americans amid pressure from health experts
President Joe Biden will pledge 500 million free lateral flow tests for Americans as the Omicron coronavirus variant spreads rapidly through the country.
Biden has been outlining major changes to his Covid-19 winter plan, his hand forced by the arrival of the fast-spreading variant. The president also said Americans who have been vaccinated should not be cancelling plans to see family in person this holiday season - despite rising Omicron cases.
The White House provided details on the proposals Mr Biden is set to announce.
A cornerstone of the plan is Biden's decision for the government to purchase 500 million coronavirus rapid tests for free shipment to Americans starting in January.
People will use a new website to order their tests, which will then be sent by in the post at no charge, the White House said. It marks a major shift for Mr Biden, who earlier had called for many Americans to purchase the hard-to-find tests on their own and then seek reimbursement from their health insurance.
For the first time, the US government will send free Covid-19 tests directly to Americans, after more than a year of urging by public health experts. Experts had criticised Biden's initial buy-first, get-paid-later approach as unwieldy and warned that the US would face another round of problems with testing at a critical time.
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Testing advocates point to places like the UK and Germany, which have distributed billions of tests to the public and recommend people test themselves twice a week.
The federal government will also establish new testing sites and use the Defense Production Act to help manufacture more tests. The first new federally supported testing site will open in New York this week. The new testing sites will add to 20,000 already available. White House officials said they're working with Google so that people will be able to find them by searching “free Covid test near me.” Still, Mr Biden's testing surge would fall far short of the levels needed for all Americans to test at the recommended rate of twice weekly. The US would need 2.3 billion tests per month for everyone 12 and older to do that, according to the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation.
That’s nearly five times the half-billion tests Mr Biden will deploy.
Currently, the US can conduct about 600 million tests per month, with home tests accounting for about half, according to researchers from Arizona State University.
In another prong to Biden's amped-up plan, he is prepared to deploy an additional 1,000 troops with medical skills to assist hospitals buckling under the virus surge.
But vaccination remains the main drive against the variant.
The government will support multiple vaccination sites and provide hundreds of personnel to administer shots. New rules will make it easier for pharmacists to work across state lines to administer a broader range of shots. For those who are already fully vaccinated, booster shots have been shown in lab tests to provide strong protection against Omicron. To the unvaccinated, Mr Biden plans to deliver a stern admonition that they're risking their lives and the lives of their loved ones.
Some prominent experts said that Mr Biden’s plan is a step in the right direction but the president hasn’t gone far enough to try to get ahead of the virus, given the risks of infections and hospitals being overwhelmed. “I don’t know that the measures being proposed are going to be adequate,” said Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. Mr Hotez said the government may need go a step further by authorising a second booster shot for health care workers to prevent infections that would sideline clinicians when all hands are needed. Dr. Eric Topol, professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research in La Jolla, California, said the administration “finally sees the light” on testing with Biden’s plan to ship 500 million tests, but the type of test being provided is important at a time when the disease can spread quickly. “We don’t have control of this pandemic here,” said Topol. “We need to pull out all the stops, and we’re not doing that still.” Scientists say Omicron spreads even more easily than other coronavirus strains, including Delta. It accounted for nearly three-quarters of new US infections last week.