Free COVID-19 tests from federal government: When and how you can order them

Free COVID-19 tests from federal government: When and how you can order them Show Caption Hide Caption COVID-19 at-home test kits will be available for free The federal government will ship COVID-19 home tests for free via COVIDTests.gov starting in late September. At the end of September, American households will be able to order free COVID-19 tests that will detect current variants and be usable until the end of the year, according to officials. In August, public health officials announced that the COVIDtest.gov program will once again be made available ahead of the COVID-19 surge that happens during winter. Since the pandemic, COVID-19 joined the flu and RSV and became a common respiratory virus that peaks in the colder months of the year. New COVID variant: COVID variant XEC sees rapid global growth: What to know about the new strain How to order the COVID-19 tests To order the tests, visit COVIDtest.gov. The tests will be able to detect the dominant variants that are circulating, including the following subvariants, according to the CDC. Latest data on COVID-19 variants According to the CDC’s latest Nowcast data reflecting the two-week period starting on Sept. 1 and ending on Sept. 14., these are the most common COVID variants: Can’t see the table? COVID-19 variant KP.3.1.1 accounts for more than half of positive infections in the United States, the latest projections from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show. The agency’s Nowcast data tracker, which displays COVID-19 estimates and projections for two-week periods, reflected that the KP.3.1.1 variant accounted for 52.7% of positive infections, followed by KP.2.3 at 12.2% in the two-week stretch starting on Sept. 1 and ending on Sept. 14. KP.3.1.1 first became the leading variant in the two-week period, starting on July 21st and ending on August 3rd. Previously, the KP.3.1.1 variant made up 40.0% of cases for the two-week period that started on Aug. 18 and ended on Aug. 31, and KP.2.3 accounted for 14.5%. According to the data, KP.3.1.1 rose 12.7%, and KP.2.3 decreased 2.3% from Aug. 31 in projected positive infections. Although not reflected on the CDC’s Nowcast data tracker, a newly discovered COVID strain known as XEC continues to spread rapidly across multiple countries, including the U.S. Scripps Research’s Outbreak.info page, last updated on Sept. 5, reported 95 XEC cases across 12 U.S. states and 15 different countries. Contributing: Sabine Martin, Shelby Slade; Arizona Republic; Anthony Robledo, USA TODAY Julia Gomez is a trending reporter for USA TODAY. – This Summarize was created by Neural News AI (V1). Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2024/09/19/free-covid-tests-government/75288123007/