Commercial
Supported by
Once hard to find, home review kits are available and you possibly have more than you want, for now.
Send a story to any friend.
As a subscriber, you have 10 gift pieces to offer per month. Anyone can read what you share.
By Steven Kuruz
Earlier this month, Juliana Park stumbled upon what looked like a mirage while shopping for groceries at Target in San Jose, California. There, in the pharmacy department, in the corner of allergy medications, was a full shelf of home tests for the Covid-19 antigen. . . Box after box, everything is to go.
“My jaw literally dropped under my mask,” said Park, 26, who works in communications for a Bay Area union. “I looked to my left, I looked to my right. Why don’t other people run around this corner?
From the beginning, the pandemic has been characterized by a mismatch between the source and demand for products: masks, toilet paper, semiconductors, automobiles, housing. So it was with coronavirus testing.
Wasn’t it just two months ago that everyone was searching for internet sites and going to every pharmacy within a 30-mile radius in a futile search for a quick check kit?which have become one of the most productive Christmas gifts of the season. Amazon experienced a shortage of checks and pharmacies had to set strict limits on the number of checks it can buy.
For now, at least, the house is plentiful and everywhere.
This month, Biden’s management announced that Americans can only ask for 4 additional loose checks for family members through the U. S. Postal Service. USA This follows check kits that the government distributed in January as part of the same program, as part of a plan to acquire and distribute one billion checks.
There are at least nine other home tests on the U. S. market. One manufacturer, Abbott Laboratories, produced 70 million BinaxNOW tests in January alone, according to the company.
Free Covid testing is available in public libraries, college bookstores, through local government agencies, personal health insurance companies, and in many workplaces. and vaccination mandates are reconsidered.
“It’s unfortunate that we haven’t had those tests before, before the Omicron wave, before the Delta wave, and frankly before 2020,” said Dr. Michael Mina, 38, a pathologist and lead clinical officer at eMed, a virtual gym. . The care company that links home testing with the treatment of patients, adding for Covid. “It feels too little and too late. But it’s much better to have them available. “
In fact, many other people not only have proof, but have also accumulated stocks of them. Mary Robinette Kowal has 23 tests. That doesn’t count the 4 tests he just ordered as part of the government’s program.
Ms. Kowal, 53, a novelist who has written about spaceflight for the New York Times and lives in Hamilton County, Tennessee, helps store check kits in a kitchen drawer near the front of her house. She and her husband live with their parents, who are in poor health; The pandemic, asked visitors to carry a check when they arrived.
“As the number of cases decreases, we relax,” Kowal said. “On the other hand, you know the difference between a bloodless test and a covid test. “
Park has 8 check boxes, which she helps keep in her pantry with her allergy medications and multivitamins. “Eight, objectively, is a lot because those packages have two boxes,” she said. “But I’m leaving them in case someone else wants them. I feel comfortable right now at 8 years old.
Nicole Carr, a ProPublica journalist who lives in metro Atlanta, also has 8 checks stored in her kitchen and bathroom, though she would still prefer to have 10, enough for her, her husband, and 3 children to check twice. Last week, Ms. Carr, 38, asked the government for more checks and also realized that one of the boxes she had bought in the past was about to expire.
Unlike the accumulated toilet paper rolls, it turns out that coronavirus checks have a fairly short shelf life. Some iHealth checks sent through the government in January have an expiration date in July. the pieces degrade over time, Mavens said.
“What happens if you don’t use them? It was a smart reminder to line up the boxes in order of expiration,” Carr said, adding that home testing has “an herbal component to make plans for our family,” and that she plans will continue, at least this year.
In fact, the overabundance of testing can be helpful, as cases are found in parts of Europe and Asia, and the highly contagious subvariant of Omicron BA. 2 now accounts for nearly a quarter of new cases in the United States.
Dr. Michael Misialek, associate director of pathology at Newton-Wellesley Hospital in Newton, Massachusetts, said it has nothing to do with maintaining a small reserve. In fact, he encouraged her.
“People shouldn’t worry about ‘Oh, I have too much,'” said Dr. Misialek, 53. “It’s not one and it’s done. Actual accuracy is advanced by making another one or two days later. Personally, I have 10 boxes at home.
In the future, immediate home testing could be part of the twenty-first-century first aid kit, a staple of the medicine cabinet along with bandages and Advil, doctors said.
Ms. Park, whose eyes lit up when she was at Target, vividly remembers 8 weeks ago, when she didn’t have a bachelorette check at home and couldn’t find one anywhere. a bowl of lollipops.
“The first idea that crossed my mind, how much can I buy?Is there a roof?” she said.
However, a more generous spirit prevailed. ” For me, it’s the mentality of taking what I need,” Park said. “I bought two. “
Commercial