The White House announced that starting Wednesday, January 19, people can order a free COVID-19 testing tool through the COVIDTests.gov website. Previously, President Joe Biden announced in December that the administration would build a website to distribute 500 million copies of the testing tools, and now the White House has delivered on that promise.
To get the COVID-19 testing tool, you only need to enter two pieces of information -- your name and address. The White House said in its announcement that after receiving user registration, the testing tools will be shipped through the US Postal Service "within 7-12 days of ordering." Currently, the limit per residential address is 4 test tools.
On Wednesday, a White House adviser said the site "should go live this weekend." Technically, the government has hit that deadline — you can access COVIDTests.gov now, though it currently shows a landing page that lets you know the test will be available on Wednesday and that you don't need to enter your credit card number to get one.
It is reported that the US Postal Service is not only responsible for delivering test tools to users. And, according to Protocol, it is also responsible for developing a website that will have to deal with millions of people trying to get tested at the same time. The report quoted a government official as saying that it was "very serious about our site launch" and that it was "not built from scratch."
Given the government's poor reputation for launching a healthcare website, there are doubts about whether the site will be able to handle this traffic — some rightly point out that some of the most vulnerable people may have difficulty surfing the web and browsing the site. A White House statement said that if you do not have access to the website, you can also call a hotline to order the test, and the administration will "work with national and local community organizations to support the most affected and at-risk communities in the country to apply for the test."
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