Biden offers more free COVID tests, although demand has slowed

The Biden administration Tuesday formally began allowing Americans who had ordered free coronavirus tests this winter to request a second round of four tests per household, through the same U.S. Postal Service program that President Joe Biden unveiled in January.

The move, which Biden had promised last week during his State of the Union address, followed a crush of interest in the program when it debuted in January. At the time, case rates had skyrocketed because of the omicron variant, and tens of millions of households scrambled to obtain the free tests.

Now, with supply outpacing demand and virus cases on a steep decline, White House officials and public health experts say it will require significant effort to sustain interest in testing — and ensure that manufacturers keep producing tests.

“People were able to sell tests like hotcakes over omicron,” said Gigi Gronvall, a testing expert at Johns Hopkins University. “They were able to gouge prices. It’s now, when the libraries can’t give them away, that the government needs to make sure that the manufacturers don’t pull out, like what happened before delta.”