Free COVID-19 tests from the federal government are starting to arrive in the mail. If you haven’t ordered yours already, the link is www.covidtests.gov.
Simply enter your name and address to receive four rapid antigen tests, limited to one order per residential address. No personal information like banking or Social Security numbers are necessary. Only scammers would be looking for such private data: Beware of that.
Free, widespread at-home tests are a crucial piece of what the nation needs to help move us toward a hopefully endemic period with the disease and away from fights over other tools like masks in schools. The tests can be very useful for those worried about infecting the medically vulnerable, young and unvaccinated, or elderly family members and friends. Using the U.S. Postal Service to get kits to households around the country is smart, and a prime example of how the federal government can use the agency in times of emergency.
The Biden administration has also promised other routes to free testing, and additionally has vowed to release free high-quality N95 masks from the Strategic National Stockpile and distribute them to the public through community heath centers and most pharmacies that are part of the federal government’s COVID vaccine program. Like the tests, such masks can help protect those who need protecting, and can be of great use in certain indoor locations at certain times.
Unfortunately for Long Islanders, it’s hard to ignore at least some sense of “too little, too late.” With infection numbers continuing to drop here, we could have used those tests and masks weeks ago at the height of the omicron holiday storm.
More crucially, we desperately needed masks, tests, and more medical gear from the federal government during the earliest, unvaccinated periods of the pandemic when New York was the epicenter — when even medical professionals were insufficiently supplied, let alone the general public. We continue to live with the consequences.
Surely, there will be mix-ups and bumbling with the federal government’s current direct-to-consumer mask and test push. Some people will still have too hard a time getting access. A mere four tests is entirely insufficient for so many families struggling to keep infants or the elderly virus-free.
But in broad strokes, this is the way the government should have responded to the pandemic from the beginning: by mobilizing the powerful resources of the world’s reigning superpower to churn out all the tests and masks and gowns and vaccines that its residents needed. By relying on our long-standing institutions, from the military to the Postal Service, to get resources to every apartment complex and rural abode. By activating our vast technological and scientific prowess to develop websites that provide and gather information or treatments that save lives.
That didn’t happen quickly enough when New York really needed it. But it must become the blueprint for attacking the next deadly scourge.
MEMBERS OF THE EDITORIAL BOARD are experienced journalists who offer reasoned opinions, based on facts, to encourage informed debate about the issues facing our community.
