Biden Doubles At-Home Test Buy; Requests For Billion Free Kits Kick Off Next Week

NPR: Biden Announces Purchase Of 500 Million More At-Home COVID Tests
President Biden announced Thursday that the administration will buy another 500 million at-home COVID-19 tests for Americans in addition to his plans detailed last month to order 500 million tests. A website will launch next week so Americans can order the free tests, Biden said. It's still not clear when they will be available. Biden also said the White House will make high-quality masks available for free, with details coming out next week. (Naylor, 1/13)

CBS News: 5 Places Where You Can Buy A Home COVID-19 Test Today 
For now, the at-home screening tools are still hard to find in stock — many are sold out across brick-and-mortar pharmacy chains and online retailers. If you're looking for a test, read on to learn about five places that offer a range of at-home, rapid COVID-19 tests that are authorized for emergency use by the Food and Drug Administration. (Cerullo, 1/13)

Can you trust your test results? —

KHN: What Patients Can Learn With Confidence From One Negative Rapid Test (Hint: Very Little) 
Julie Ann Justo, an infectious disease clinical pharmacist for a South Carolina hospital system, hoped Christmas week would finally be the time her family could safely gather for a reunion. Before the celebration, family members who were eligible were vaccinated and boosted. They quarantined and used masks in the days leading up to the event. And many took solace in negative results from rapid covid-19 tests taken a few days before the 35-person indoor gathering in South Florida to make sure no one was infectious. But within a week, Justo and at least 13 members of her extended family tested positive for covid, with many feeling typical symptoms of an upper respiratory virus, such as a sore throat and a runny nose. (Appleby and Galewitz, 1/13)

NBC News: Should You Do A Throat Swab With An At-Home Covid Test?
As omicron cases continue to sweep the United States, the Food and Drug Administration is being urged to gather more information about how well at-home Covid-19 tests are able to detect the variant. Evidence suggests the omicron variant of the virus may appear in the throat before it shows up in the nose. For this reason, there’s been pressure on the FDA to recommend swabbing the throat with the nasal swabs. But medical experts argue that anecdotes from people who test negative with a nasal swab at home but then test positive with a throat swab can be misleading. FDA officials say there isn’t enough data to support the practice. (Sullivan, 1/14)

CNBC: Fauci: Why U.S. Isn't Using Israel's Throat Swab Covid Test Method Yet
The infamous nasal swab Covid test could soon become a thing of the past. During Senate testimony this week, White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci and U.S. Food and Drug Administration acting commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock discussed an increasingly popular theory — that throat swabs could detect Covid’s omicron variant more effectively than nasal swabs, especially in rapid antigen tests. “There have been recent reports that, in fact, [there may be higher] sensitivity and ability to detect [the virus] in a swab of the throat versus the nasopharynx, at least with omicron,” Fauci told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee on Tuesday. “I think it needs to be validated and verified.” (Sauer, 1/13)

In more news about covid tests —

Las Vegas Review-Journal: Nevada Orders 500K At-Home COVID Tests
Nevada has ordered more than half a million at-home COVID-19 tests to help address the demand for testing amid a surge of coronavirus cases, Gov. Steve Sisolak announced Thursday. “We know that Nevadans want easy and convenient access to COVID-19 testing from the comfort of their own home, and this project will help us accomplish that goal and help relieve some of the strain on our other testing systems,” Sisolak said. The announcement came in the midst of the current COVID-19 surge throughout the state, driven by the omicron variant. The highly transmissible variant now accounts for 89 percent of cases in the state, according to data from the Nevada State Public Health Laboratory. (Dylan, 1/12)

AP: Montana Orders 650,000 Rapid COVID-19 Tests For Residents
The state of Montana has ordered 650,000 rapid COVID-19 tests to be distributed to residents through county health departments, Gov. Greg Gianforte announced Thursday. (1/14)

Salt Lake Tribune: Utah Has ‘Maxed Out’ Its COVID-19 Testing Capacity, Which Could Hide The Full Surge In Cases
With more than 48,000 Utahns tested for the coronavirus in a single day this week, Utah has exceeded its testing capacity, health officials confirmed. Unless the state can obtain more testing supplies and providers, future case counts — while record-breaking — could drastically understate the actual prevalence of the virus. “We’ve maxed out our ability to identify cases,” Dr. Angela Dunn, director of the Salt Lake County Health Department, said in a county council meeting Tuesday. “So as we start seeing a potential plateau in our cases, it’s not due to spread, it’s due to the limited ability to test. We are turning people away from our testing sites.” (Alberty, 1/13)

The Boston Globe: Mass. Dept. Of Public Health Closes 3 Unlicensed COVID-19 Testing Sites
Three COVID-19 testing sites in Massachusetts were ordered to close Thursday because they do not have the proper license and residents have complained about delays in receiving results, the state Department of Public Health said. Testing sites in Dartmouth, Needham and Worcester operated by the Center for COVID Control Testing, a private company based in Illinois, were issued cease and desist orders, according to the state. Each location provided rapid antigen and PCR testing to residents. But the company opened the sites without a license to operate a clinical laboratory in Massachusetts, officials said. (Mercado, 1/13)