Biden administration to boost rapid home testing with billion dollar investment



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On Wednesday, a White House official said the United States would announce a $ 1 billion investment, which will go towards “purchasing rapid at-home Covid tests to further mobilize our test makers to bring more to the Marlet “.

In September, President Joe Biden announced a $ 2 billion investment in rapid tests for community health centers, food banks and schools, and also announced that retailers such as Walmart, Amazon and Kroger would sell rapid home test kits at cost for the next three months. .

But demand has exceeded supply for these tests so far, with shelves empty across the country. The administration is seeking to rapidly increase this supply.

The billion-dollar announcement also comes days after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized a home test from ACON labs, which will speed up the pace of rapid tests on the shelves.

The investment, coupled with Biden’s September announcement and FDA approval, the White House official said, means “we’re now on track to quadruple the number of rapid home tests. available to Americans in December “.

In recent months, the United States has produced around 30 million tests per month, which is expected to increase to 200 million tests per month as of December, the official said.

The administration will also announce on Wednesday that it will double the government’s free testing program to include 20,000 local pharmacies.

“With these pharmacy sites added to the thousands of community free test sites, there will be a total of 30,000 free test sites,” the official said.

This is a breaking story and will be updated.

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