1 in 3 US households utilized Biden administration’s free at-home COVID tests: CDC

Nearly 1 in 3 U.S. households used free at-home COVID-19 tests provided by the Biden administration, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Thursday.

The report found that 32.1 percent of households surveyed between April and May 2022 had used the government test kits. Just under 60 percent of households ordered the tests and about 94 percent were aware of the program, according to the CDC.

The White House launched its distribution of free at-home test kits in January 2022, initially allowing each household to request up to four tests. The administration continued to expand the allowable number of tests in subsequent months, sending out more than 70 million test kit packages by last May.

More than 95 percent of those surveyed rated their experience with the free at-home tests as acceptable, with nearly a quarter — 23.6 percent — saying they would have been unlikely to test for COVID-19 if the free kits hadn’t been available.

While the use of the testing kits was largely similar across different racial and ethnic groups, Americans of color were slightly more likely to use the government-provided tests than white Americans, the CDC report found.

Compared to the 34.8 percent of white Americans who said they had used the free at-home test kits, 42.1 percent of Black Americans, 41.5 percent of Hispanic Americans and 53.7 percent of Americans of other races said the same.

Black Americans were much less likely to use other at-home test kits that were not provided by the government, with just 11.8 percent saying they used such tests. More than 40 percent of white, Hispanic and other Americans said they used non-government tests. 

“Racial and ethnic disparities in COVID-19 illness have been widely reported, as have concerns about the cost and accessibility of at-home tests,” the CDC noted.

“Long-term availability of government test kits appears to have significantly improved access to COVID-19 testing for racial and ethnic minorities, underscoring a critically important and successful element of the national COVID-19 response,” it added.

Younger Americans were also more likely to take advantage of the free at-home tests, with more than half of people between 18 and 44 years old using the test kits, according to the CDC report. The use of the government tests decreased with older age groups, dropping to 28.6 percent among Americans over 65.

President Biden signed a GOP-led bill ending the national emergency over the COVID-19 pandemic last week.