Following a summer season uptick of COVID-19 infections, People will quickly have the ability to order free COVID-19 assessments this fall.
The U.S. Division of Well being and Human Providers has not but supplied an official date that the nasal swab assessments can be accessible, however says kits ought to be able to order by the top of September. The initiative is rolling out forward of the vacation season, when colds, flus and different diseases turn out to be extra frequent.
Households will have the ability to acquire 4 free antigen COVID-19 assessments by visiting COVIDtests.gov, a repeat of the 2023 program. And the division says that these assessments will have the ability to “detect present COVID-19 variants and can be utilized via the top of the yr,” in response to its web site.
The most recent knowledge from the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention discovered that check positivity for COVID-19 stood at 14.9%, a lower from the 17.8% excessive reached in August, although that quantity continues to be elevated. By comparability, in Might, positivity hovered round 3-4%.
On Monday, the web site to order the assessments gave the impression to be down resulting from “an excessive amount of site visitors or a configuration error.”
In 2023, 900 million COVID-10 assessments went out to People via this system, in response to U.S. Well being and Human Providers.
Final month, U.S. regulators accredited an up to date COVID-19 vaccine that seeks to fight the KP variant pressure, the predominant variant that has been circulating. People as younger as 6 months can be eligible to obtain the shot.
“Vaccination continues to be the cornerstone of COVID-19 prevention,” Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Heart for Biologics Analysis and Analysis mentioned in a press launch. “Given waning immunity of the inhabitants from earlier publicity to the virus and from prior vaccination, we strongly encourage those that are eligible to contemplate receiving an up to date COVID-19 vaccine to offer higher safety in opposition to at the moment circulating variants.”
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