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Biden wishes he’d thought of ordering 500 million Covid tests at home 2 months ago


U.S. President Joe Biden speaks at the Medal of Honor ceremony in Washington, December 16, 2021.

Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters

President Joe Biden said he wished he had ordered 500 million free home Covid tests two months ago.

Biden, in a interview with ABC News that aired Wednesday night, talked about his administration’s plan to send tests to Americans as the highly contagious omicron variant spreads. Studies say omicrons appear to be less severe than other variants, but officials are concerned about the increase in hospitalizations and deaths for mostly unvaccinated people.

“I’ve ordered half a billion … test kits that will be available to send to every home in America if someone wants them,” he told David Muir. “But the answer is, yes, I wish I had thought of ordering half a billion [tests] two months ago, before Covid hit here,” he added.

Biden Administration on Tuesday announced plans to order 500 million of their home testing kits. Officials hope people can get the free tests as early as January.

“Five hundred million inspections in January is the largest order we’ve ever made to date and we’ll do it as quickly as we can, but they won’t be available until January,” said the secretary. White House press Jen Psaki said at a briefing on Tuesday.

Aside from predictions that the tests will be available next month, the White House has yet to have details on the initiative, including how Americans will participate in these free home tests. any.

For now, Psaki told reporters on Tuesday that the White House will roll out a website where people can request testing to their doorstep.

“People will go to a website – again, we’ll roll that out in January as we have information – and they’ll be able to request free tests,” she said.

Rapid Covid-19 home testing kits are ready to be distributed at Chelsea Community Connections in Chelsea, Massachusetts on December 17, 2021.

Joseph Prezioso | AFP | beautiful pictures

It is unclear how the tests will be delivered to homes or if there will be a limit to the number of tests that each household can order.

Some experts, including the White House’s chief medical adviser, Dr Anthony Fauci, say the spread of the omicron variant could soon peak, leading to questions about at-home tests. How handy will it be by the time they arrive?

“It’s going to be a matter of a couple of weeks after which we start to see a significant drop,” he said. Fauci said on Good Morning America on Tuesday. “That’s what we’re hoping for.”

Fauci added, “When you have something going fast, you usually see it come back right away. Because, what’s going to happen is that most people are going to get infected, especially people who are sick,” Fauci said. unvaccinated or vaccinated.”

Currently, people across the country are scrambling to get tested before the holiday to make sure they can safely reunite with family and loved ones. This has resulted in hours-long wait times and form a long queue at test centers in big cities.

The U.S. conducted nearly 1.6 million inspections daily as of Wednesday, following the seven-day average of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, sideways in the past week. That number may be an understatement given the ubiquity of at-home testing kits, which have become hard to find in the nation’s pockets.

The data shows that the average daily tests peaked at nearly 1.9 million on January 15 of this year, around the same time daily cases in the US peaked. That was also before home testing became widely available.

CVS Health and Walgreens are Limit the number of home tests every shopper can buy as demand has increased in recent days and weeks.

Even Amazon has Limited sales Check online at home for timely delivery. Because their own brand In home tests, the supplier is limiting the number of purchases per shopper to ten.

Addressing the shortfalls and verbosity, Biden told ABC News, “No, I don’t think it’s a failure.”

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