US launches website to offer free COVID tests at home Coronavirus pandemic News

With a new website launched a day before the official date, Americans can order four free test kits per home.

People in the United States can order free COVID-19 test kits online as the White House moves to increase test capacity. Omikron variant.

A federal government website through which the Americans requested the test to go online on Tuesday, a day before its official presentation. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said it will operate at “limited capacity” until it is fully set up on Wednesday.

The program will initially allow for four tests per household, “usually on request and will be shipped within 7-12 days,” the White House said in a statement last week. The administration is working with the U.S. Postal Service to package and deliver the tests.

President Joe Biden is committed to making testing more accessible in the U.S. after his administration criticized the lack of kits and long queues for home testing during the holiday season.

UPDATE: Online ordering is now available at https://t.co/8zCIsCJVsM! https://t.co/sRD5j4XHdm

– Representative Betty McCollum (@ BettyMcCollum04) January 18, 2022

In December, Biden said his administration would do it Buy 500 million Take the COVID-19 test quickly and at home and make it available for free from January. The administration later pledged to buy a billion tests, but only half of that amount will be available this month.

“To help ensure that Americans have access to the tests they need, the Biden Administration is quickly buying a billion COVID-19 tests at home to give to the Americans for free,” the White House said in a statement on Jan. 14.

On Tuesday, several U.S. lawmakers asked them to request tests online.

Critics hit Biden testing for scarcity last month, but Psaki rejected the suggestion in early December that the U.S. federal government should deliver test kits to Americans. “Should we sell one to every American?” he asked.

But there have been coronavirus infections and related deaths rise from mid-November onwards Omicron the variant continues to spread in recent weeks.

More than 850,000 people have died as a result of COVID-19 since the start of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States, according to Data from Johns Hopkins University – the highest number of coronavirus deaths in the world.

Research around the world has suggested that the Omicron variant is affected milder disease Than the Delta strain.

But public health experts have warned that the more infectious nature of the new variant could lead to more deaths and hospitalizations because it will generally spread to a larger number of people.

“A lot of people are still going to die as Omicron is transmitted,” University of South Florida epidemiologist Jason Salemi told The Associated Press. “Unfortunately it will get worse before it gets better.”

According to the news agency, the modelers predicted that 50,000 to 300,000 more people could be killed in the U.S. by mid-March when the Omicron-related point is reduced.