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- The move will quadruple the number of such tests available to Americans by December.
- White House officials said there will be a supply of 200 million rapid tests per month by December.
- The announcement follows the Food and Drug Administration’s decision Monday to authorize rapid tests manufactured by the company ACON Laboratories.
The Biden administration is ramping up the nation’s supply of rapid, at-home COVID-19 tests as well as access to free testing around the country.
The White House on Wednesday announced its plans to invest $1 billion to accelerate the production of rapid, at-home coronavirus tests amid ongoing supply shortages.
The move will quadruple the number of such tests available to Americans by December.
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“Today we’re making another billion-dollar investment to further mobilize testing manufacturers,” Jeff Zients, White House COVID-19 response coordinator, said during a news briefing.
“We’ll have available supply of 200 million rapid, at-home tests per month starting in December, with supply of tens of millions of tests coming on the market in the next few weeks,” Zients said.
The announcement follows the Food and Drug Administration’s decision Monday to authorize rapid tests manufactured by the company ACON Laboratories. The company plans to produce more than 100 million tests per month by the end of the year and 200 million per month by February.
Zients also said the White House is ramping up access to free testing by doubling the number of local pharmacies in the federal government’s free testing program to 20,000.
The current seven-day average for daily new cases is about 97,000, a decrease of more than 12 percent from the previous week. Hospitalizations have fallen about 14 percent from last week while deaths remain fairly constant at about 1,400 per day, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky.
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