Biden administration plans to quadruple the number of at-home tests
On Wednesday, the Biden administration announced its plans to boost rapid at-home COVID-19 tests with an additional $1 billion investment. Jeffrey Zients, the White House's coronavirus response coordinator, said the number of at-home tests available to Americans is on track to quadruple by December.
Video Transcript
- In the past few months, testing has increased, particularly at home testing, a convenient option that came to market earlier this year. To meet this increased demand, the president's plan ramps up both the availability of tests, and access to free testing. In just a matter of weeks, we've made significant progress on both fronts. In September, at the president's direction, the federal government invested $2 billion to ensure tests are available to those who need them, and to provide manufacturers with purchase commitments that allow them to ramp up their production.
And this week, we're making even more progress. On Monday, FDA authorized a new rapid at home test from ACON Laboratories, which will bring tens of millions more rapid at home tests to the market. Over the past day, we've also received commitments from two manufacturers, Quidel, and OraSure, to further expand manufacturing to speed up their production of rapid tests, taking months off their timelines and adding tens of millions of tests per month to their production capacity.
And today, we're making another $1 billion investment to further mobilize testing manufacturers. This means companies will be able to expand production of tests even further based on the United States government's commitment to procure an additional 180 million rapid tests over the course of the next year, with tens of millions more tests coming to market over the course of the next 30 days.
Thanks to the president's actions in September, we were on track to double the supply of rapid home tests available on the market each month by early November. Authorization of the new ACON test on Monday accelerates this pace. And we are now on track to triple the number by early November. And then today's $1 billion investment to further expand testing production puts us on track to quadruple the amount of at home rapid tests available for Americans by December.
