The government will again be sending out free COVID test to American households this fall, following a rise in cases this summer and an expected seasonal rise into wintertime.
While, of course, the peak of the coronavirus pandemic is behind us, cases are continuing to bubble across the country, causing illness and deaths. There was a wave of cases that built up at the tail-end of this summer, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show, and while it's significantly better than in previous years, we've learned we have to stay vigilant to keep the virus away.
We've also learned in the past few years that it's easier to spread COVID during the winter, when people gather more, for the holidays, and spend more time indoors in enclosed spaces, due to the cold. It's with that trend in mind that the government will be sending out free COVID-19 tests this fall.
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"As families start to move indoors this fall and begin spending time with their loved ones, both very old and very young, they will once again have the opportunity to order up to four new COVID-19 tests free of charge and have them sent directly to their homes," Dawn O'Connell, assistant secretary for preparedness and response at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), told reporters, according to ABC News.
Households will be able to get four free COVID at-home tests, which will be able to detect current variants and can be used through the end of the year, the HHS says. You can order them through COVIDTests.gov. However, you'll have to wait till "the end of September" to order them, and the government didn't announce an exact date when ordering will be live on the site.
A COVID test costs as little as $10, so this amounts to savings of about $40. It's not a lot of cash, but you could feel better about putting it towards, say, a few Pumpkin Spice Lattes this fall. If you also consider the savings of not having to go to a doctor's office for a test, you just scored yourself a couple more lattes.
Other COVID precautions this fall
If testing is a way to keep others safe from COVID-19, keeping up with vaccines is a way to keep yourself safe. Updated vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer were recently approved by the FDA and are becoming available around the country.
These vaccines are specifically updated to address a variant of COVID that caused the majority of infections this summer, according to Andy Pekosz, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
The CDC recommends COVID vaccines for everyone 6 months and older, and Pekosz says the best time to get vaccinated, if you haven't had COVID in the past few months, is either as soon as you can, while the summer wave is still going on, or in mid-October, to tackle an expected rise in cases around the holidays. You can get a flu vaccine at the same time.
Health is wealth, and an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
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