The United States government has announced the suspension of mail orders for free COVID-19 tests, on Friday, March 8, 2024.
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Effective immediately, residential households will no longer be able to request free COVID-19 tests for delivery through the United States Postal Service after Friday, March 8. The Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR), a branch of the U.S. Health and Human Services Department, has set the deadline at 11:59 p.m. PT.
A spokesperson for ASPR stated that, “ASPR has successfully distributed over 1.8 billion free COVID-19 tests to the American public via COVIDTests.gov and other direct distribution channels. Moving forward, ASPR will continue to distribute millions of tests each week to various institutions such as long-term care facilities, food banks, health centers, and schools.”
While this suspension may seem final, history has shown that mail orders for free COVID tests from the government have been both paused and resumed in the past. ASPR has made it clear that they retain the right to reactivate the COVIDTest.gov program as necessary in the future.
The initiative to offer free mail-order COVID tests was initially launched by the Biden administration in January 2022. After a brief hiatus, the program was relaunched in September of the same year, allowing households to request the most recent round of tests starting from November.
The decision to halt orders for the sixth round of the program is a response to declining case rates following the winter respiratory season, as highlighted by ASPR. While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have indicated that the peak of the respiratory virus season has likely passed following a surge in December, caution is still advised.
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