Federal government reintroduces free COVID-19 home tests –

The federal government is expanding the program for free delivery of COVID home tests by post.

The order form on Covidtests.gov will be available before the end of the month. This should help American households stock up ahead of respiratory virus season and holiday travel and help test manufacturers cope with fluctuating demand.

Rapid home COVID tests were once a coveted commodity. Today, some of us have them piling up in our medicine cabinets until they expire.

Julie Swann, a healthcare supply chain expert at North Carolina State University, said companies that produce emergency supplies are familiar with this boom-and-bust cycle.

“And that makes it difficult to maintain operations for testing, treatments and even vaccines,” Swann said.

But the test kit market was particularly volatile as our settings People's attitudes toward contracting the virus have changed, says Gigi Gronvall of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

“I think people are a little more laissez-faire,” Gronvall said, and are less likely to get tested when they feel sick. “The demand is not as great as it used to be.”

Demand for tests still rises sharply at times, especially around the holidays or when there is a regional increase in the number of cases.

But with such little security, “it's hard to want to invest in making this device,” says Amy Kelbick, health policy director at consulting firm McDermott+.

Some businesses originally set up to meet demand during the pandemic have scaled back or ceased operations altogether, she added.

Government contracts have helped stabilize others' business, especially now that insurance coverage for home tests has become patchy. “It's actually the federal government that's probably the biggest customer for many of these test manufacturers,” Kelbick said.

That's far less risky than relying on the market, Gronvall said. “You want to make sure the tests are there when you need them.”

And this production capacity is available for further tests that we don't yet know whether we will need.