The U.S Government has soft-launched a website for its citizens through which they can ask for complimentary at-home corona test kits. This soft launch happened on January 2nd week, merely a day before the actual date on which the site was supposed to go online. The official launch was on 19th January 2022.
The site, COVIDTests.gov, now comprises a link for ‘every home in the U.S.’ Using this service, American citizens can order forms made available by the postal service in the U.S. The Postal Service would, in turn, deliver this.
The immediate response was overwhelming. As per the public government tracking data information, about 750,000 people were using the site simultaneously.
In December 2021, the Biden administration had announced that the government is planning to procure about 500 million at-home tests as the first step towards launching a website. The President has announced that he is all set to almost double the order to about one billion tests.
However, Biden was not able to make the tests available as promised. Moreover, because of the covid surge, the administration was criticized for the complimentary covid test crunch. As a result, before the launch of the website, there was much uncertainty surrounding the possible availability of test kits, and the residents were apprehensive.
The inability to deliver complimentary test kits as promised led to widespread accusations that the President had failed to adequately anticipate the possible ways of the pandemic progress. There are also reports the administration was intimated of high probability for such massive test shortage. An enormous section of the residents is of the opinion that the Biden administration placed more emphasis on vaccines as a better solution.
Together with the website, there is a newly introduced phone line for the residents to order free kits for at-home tests.