US to stop sending free home COVID-19 tests to homes this week

() — The US federal government will end its program to ship free Covid-19 tests to homes this week, citing a lack of funding and efforts to preserve supply ahead of an anticipated surge in cases, it told on Sunday. a White House official.

Both the White House and the website where people can apply for their free tests blamed Congress for not providing additional funding for the program, which has provided up to 16 free tests per household since the beginning of the year.

“Orders through this program will be suspended on Friday, September 2 because Congress has not provided additional funding to replenish the nation’s testing stockpile,” the Covid.gov website reads.

The administration launched the initiative, which shipped rapid tests to Americans through the United States Postal Service (UPS), in January 2022 amid a wave of omicron variant cases and limited availability of tests. However, officials have warned for months that, absent additional funding from Congress, the administration would be forced to roll back its Covid-19 response efforts.

“We have warned that Congressional inaction would force unacceptable trade-offs and harm our overall COVID-19 preparedness and response, and that the consequences would likely worsen over time,” the White House official told . “Unfortunately, due to the limited funding we have to work with, we’ve had to make impossible decisions about which tools and programs to invest in, and which ones to scale back, pause, or end altogether.”

Still, the official said the administration would “promptly resume distribution of free tests through COVIDTests.gov as long as Congress appropriates additional funding, but “until then, we believe reserving remaining tests for distribution later this year is the best course”.