Free Covid-19 tests will be available Jan 19th

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Masochist
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With the shortages of tests this is great news.


 

Eric

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With the shortages of tests this is great news.


We picked up a couple at CVS yesterday as well, I just called every day until they had them and then ran down there.
 

AG_PhamD

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While I think this is a good move by the government, this program should have been put in place prior to Thanksgiving. A winter wave was entirely predictable, even without omicron and numbers were already increasing in early November. Other countries were procuring tests for public distribution back in the spring of 2021. We can’t go back in time unfortunately.

The ship time on these tests is also 7-12 days, not sure if that’s business days- regardless, the soonest anyone will be getting a test is January 26th. I suspect by this point the wave will start falling. There’s signs we’re already peaking in the Northeast. If we look at the UK, they have peaked already and we are generally a couple weeks behind them. Also, looking at the UK and South Africa, omicron cases seem to drop rapidly post peak. It may be helpful for other parts of the US though.

The other issue is the government apparently has only procured 10m tests so far. They are supposed to distribute 500m and just Biden announced the decision to purchase 500m more, apparently they have contracts for 420m of that 1B. So I’m a bit concerned they won’t have the inventory to accommodate the demand, at least for some time.

I am curious if this is first come first serve or if there is a system to prioritize tests for where they are needed most.

This program could also make buying rapid tests locally more difficult and more expensive. That said, you can now get insurance to reimburse these tests. Just be prepared to wait for that insurance check. And Medicare patients are excluded from this reimbursement.

The fact you can only get 4 tests per address is a little problematic for households with more than 4 people. And if you’re using the tests to confirm negativity after infection, technically you need to do 2 tests and have both negative.

I suppose this system will work to get tests to people so they can have them on hand. This isn’t a great system for people who suspect they are infected, but hopefully this will take some of the burden off local testing sites.

This program has the potential of biting the Biden administration in the butt… if any problems occur- people aren’t going to be happy. And I think based on their limited procurements, the already long ship times, and the governments track record, problems should not be unexpected.
 
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