60 million households have requested free Covid-19 rapid tests, White House says

By Maegan Vazquez and Kaitlan Collins, CNN

The White House said on Friday some 60 million households have requested free Covid-19 rapid tests so far, with tens of millions tests having “gone out the door” as part of the Biden administration’s program to mail more than half a billion rapid tests to Americans around the country.

This means the federal government has about 260 million tests still on hand out of the initial order of 500 million, which is enough for an additional 65 million households.

White House principal deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters during a gaggle aboard Air Force One that the federal government has also shipped out tens of millions of high-quality masks to locations across the country, as part of the administration’s plan to distribute 400 million free masks at convenient locations nationwide.

“Since the President’s announcement last week, we’ve shipped out tens of millions of masks to convenient locations across the country. Just today, masks arrived at several community health centers in the DMV (Washington, DC-Maryland-Virginia) area,” Jean-Pierre said en route to Pittsburgh.

“Since COVIDtests.gov launched formally last week, approximately 60 million households have placed orders for their free tests. Already, tens of millions of tests have gone out the door and households around the country are already receiving tests so that people have tests on hand if need arises,” she continued.

On boosters, Jean-Pierre also noted that this week, 70% of eligible US seniors have been boosted and 50% of eligible adults.

This is a breaking story and will be updated.

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