Tyrant Joe Biden Sending You Free COVID Tests Again, How Dare He?

Probably the spy software in the first round of tests has expired.

Note: I updated the alt-text, but was tempted to just leave the LOL AI-generated description, ‘a packet of covidd is sitting on a table.’ Photo by sarah b on Unsplash

COVID-19 still isn’t gone, in case you were wondering. It’s no longer a pandemic, but there’s been a late-summer surge of new cases — Yr Editrix caught it at the DNC in August, but she is well-vaccinated and was totally fine except having to sit in her room for five days (don’t tell anyone, it was kind of nice actually). And we’re heading into going-indoors season, so the Biden administration is once again making free COVID home test kits available through the mail, four of the kits per mailing address. You can order them online now and they’ll go out starting September 30, so hooray that there’s not going to be a government shutdown. (The Postal Service is an independent agency funded by selling stamps anyway, but darned if we know whether processing the test kit requests at HHS would have been slowed if there had been a shutdown.)

What’s that? Stop yapping and make with the URL? Well sure, don’t have a crow, man. (Just a little corvid-19 joke there.) That link there takes you to COVIDtests.gov, which also has additional info about shelf lives and the extended expiration dates for tests that went out earlier. If you just want to barge ahead and order you some tests, you can also go straight to the Postal Service order form, to which the other site links anyway.

Anyhow, since the end of the official health emergency, home COVID test kits now cost like $9.99 a pop, so having a few on hand gratis will definitely be helpful. (You can also often get them for free at your local library!) With the virus continuing to be out there, it’s just good sense to check and rule out COVID when a cold hits you like a ton of bricks (Dok raises hand and demands sympathy for all the coughing he’s done this week. Yes, I tested; not positive). And of course before you head off to visit people!

CNBC notes the tests can detect the COVID variants that are circulating right now, most of them descended from “the highly contagious omicron variant JN.1.” (No, not the legendary Curtiss JN-1 biplane of yore.)

“These tests will help keep families and their loved ones safe this fall and winter season,” Dawn O’Connell, an assistant secretary for preparedness and response at the Health and Human Services Department, said during the briefing. “This is the seventh time over the last three years that the Biden-Harris administration has given families the opportunity to order the over-the-counter Covid-19 tests for free” through the government’s website.

We’re sure some wieners are hopping mad about that, too, but the hell with ‘em.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has detected “high” or “very high” levels of COVID in wastewater in nearly all US states, although the administration had actually been planning to roll out free test mailings in September anyway since we’re entering the time of year when people are heading indoors and traveling ahead of the holidays.

Also, if you haven’t gotten your annual COVID shot, which is how we should think of the things now, it’s getting to be that time again, with new formulations out from Pfizer and Moderna, updated to protect you against a severe case of the bug. Same for the flu vaccine.

You can safely get both the flu and COVID vaccines the same day; if you’ve had COVID recently, you can hold off a month or two, but remember to get the vaccine at some point so you’ll be in good shape for the whole winter. This AP article ‘splains the guidelines clearly, and reminds us that even though it’s been downgraded to “endemic,” COVID still killed more Americans than flu last year.

The newly updated COVID shots target the current viral baddies and should provide good protection across the variants that are known to be out there now.

And if you’re an old like Dok Zoom, you may also want a shot to protect against RSV, though that vaccine only needs to be received once, not annually. It’s recommended for everyone over 75, or for those 60 to 74 who are at higher risk, like me with my high blood pressure. And please stop calling me a whippersnapper because I’m only 62.

Stay healthy, get those test kits, update your vaccines as needed and shake your fist at some young punk on an electric skateboard, OK? Oh yeah, and for the health of your democracy, make sure your voter registration is valid!

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[COVIDtests.gov / CNBC / AP]

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