PSA: At Home COVID Test Available For Ordering Now
The free at-home rapid COVID test kits slated to be available for order through a government website starting Wednesday are available for order NOW.
The site was launched in a "beta phase" today and operating at limited capacity ahead of its official launch on Wednesday.
Order yours now and avoid the rush that could crash the website tomorrow.
January 18th, 2022 at 4:08 PM ^
Thank you!
Get your orders in NOW, because it'll take a week or two before they ship out to you. Don't wait until you think you might be sick!
January 18th, 2022 at 4:11 PM ^
Just found out my very residential home is considered a "business address" by USPS for reasons beyond me, so I cannot get any tests.
I can submit a ticket to USPS to look into this so I'm expecting a response around the time the virus and/or humans are eradicated.
January 18th, 2022 at 5:04 PM ^
I'd check wife's browsing history for onlyfans.
January 18th, 2022 at 6:48 PM ^
I lol'd
January 18th, 2022 at 4:16 PM ^
Worked for me in about 10 seconds. Very efficient.
January 18th, 2022 at 4:42 PM ^
Yeah same here. Just had to double check my auto-fill address details and took me less than 30 seconds. Way more efficient than I expected it to be.
January 18th, 2022 at 4:19 PM ^
Many thanks for the link. Ordered for myself and my elderly mother.
January 18th, 2022 at 4:21 PM ^
Damn that was surprisingly easy.
Now let's see how long they actually take to arrive.
January 18th, 2022 at 4:36 PM ^
/s #nopolitics #couldntresist
January 18th, 2022 at 4:43 PM ^
Very easy to order. Thank you!
January 18th, 2022 at 4:45 PM ^
That's great news. I tired of going to urgent care each time I need to get tested. I can jam a stick up my own nose and into my own brain, thank you very much.
January 18th, 2022 at 5:52 PM ^
If you replace 'stick' with 'finger' you've described one of my favorite activities. ?
January 18th, 2022 at 4:49 PM ^
Is it illegal to order them and then sell them when the people who actually use them have used up the 4 they're entitled to (i.e. in a couple of weeks)?
January 18th, 2022 at 8:44 PM ^
Or you could just be a decent human being and give away what you got for free.
January 19th, 2022 at 10:08 AM ^
Probably not illegal, but neither is being a parasitic asshole . . .
January 18th, 2022 at 4:49 PM ^
Lol. I’m so confused. I thought we were supposed to quarantine if we even suspected Covid? What good does confirming it do? They don’t want you going to the hospital unless you’re having difficulty breathing. In which case you should be going to the hospital anyway. At which point they will test you for Covid…
What purpose does self testing serve since they are not 100% accurate and you should ASSUME you have Covid even if you test negative!?!?
And what will this do to the tracking of Covid? Now there will be (hundreds of) thousands of undocumented [NTTAWWT] Covid cases which means our numbers will start to look great!
What am I missing? What value is added by millions of people self testing?
Serious questions.
Edit: I guess for someone required to provide a negative test for work this makes sense. But that’s not the main use if EVERYONE has access.
January 18th, 2022 at 4:57 PM ^
I think that you're being a little black-and-white. If you have Covid-like symptoms but test negative with an at-home test, I think that you can go to the grocery store (while wearing a mask) but that you should still stay away from immuno-compromised people (to the extent that you know about this) and avoid things like movie theaters and sports events. The test could be wrong, sure, but all that any of us an do is work with the best information that we have.
January 18th, 2022 at 5:02 PM ^
Thanks for the civil reply! We could use more of that around here.
January 18th, 2022 at 5:42 PM ^
It looks like all the replies I see so far to your questions are serious replies, and I also don't see you were negged. So what am I missing?
January 19th, 2022 at 7:42 AM ^
BeatOSU - you aren’t missing anything. My observation about needing more civility was a general point. These threads (covid) tend to then into a shit show with people taking “sides” to issues or POVs that aren’t always clearly defined.
Go Blue!
January 18th, 2022 at 5:29 PM ^
I think the guidance to not testing and assuming positive is when you had a known exposure. If you know you were exposed then a few days later you develop symptoms, that seems pretty clear and no reason to use testing resources. But if you didn't have any reason to know you were exposed but woke up with a stuffy nose, it would be helpful to know the situation.
January 18th, 2022 at 5:30 PM ^
If you are showing symptoms of Covid, you should go get a proper PCR test.
These rapid tests are better suited for people who feel fine, but may have been in contact with someone who later got covid and want to have some (semi) certainty.
I take one before seeing my parents, just to be super cautious. But if I get an inkling of sickness or fatigue, I get an actual PCR test and stay home till I get the results.
January 18th, 2022 at 10:07 PM ^
If you have symptoms and take two rapid tests 1-3 days apart, it increases the sensitivity significantly. That is why they were approved with two tests packaged together.
January 18th, 2022 at 5:31 PM ^
My husband and I had at-home tests and received possible exposure notifications.
Because we had the tests on hand, we tested, and both came back positive. This allowed us to properly isolate. If we did not have the at-home tests, we probably wouldn't have tested at all, because neither of us had symptoms.
Five days after the rapid test came back positive we received PCR tests, both of which also came back positive.
January 18th, 2022 at 5:35 PM ^
Having rapid tests is extremely helpful for multiple reasons. Out with your friends and your friend tests positive? Probably a good idea to take a rapid test to check if you're positive. Going to a gathering? Might be a good idea to take a test before you go to make sure you're not infecting anyone. Get covid and want to know if covid has left your system after 5 or so days? Take a rapid test. At home rapid tests are about 85% accurate and I'm guessing that 15% is mostly due to user error so if you're really giving your nose a nice deep swabbing, then it's a pretty damn accurate and useful tool
January 18th, 2022 at 5:50 PM ^
Yeah good point, there is absolutely no situation in which it would be helpful to know whether or not you are positive.
/s
January 18th, 2022 at 6:23 PM ^
Ditto to many of the above replies.
As an example, my daughter didn't waitress at Pizza House last Sunday. This was unfortunate for her and Pizza House that's struggling to stay open due to a lack of staff.
Her roommate's friend tested positive and she had been with her roommate and her friend almost constantly the previous two days. She was feeling fine but didn't want to expose hundreds of patrons to COVID so she opted out of her shift. Pizza House completely agreed with her even though it made business more difficult.
With a test, she could reassure herself that she took reasonable precautions.
January 18th, 2022 at 9:57 PM ^
I would agree that your daughter did the correct thing, but even if she had at home tests, I'm not sure it would have been a good idea with a negative test right away.
I know 3 people that have taken home tests after being knowingly exposed by someone with Covid. The first two days of testing with all 3 people were negative. The third day, all positive. These are the only 3 people I know that were exposed and then home tested btw.
I don't know if that means you aren't contagious until you test positive, maybe, but maybe not, I really don't know. However if she had tested negative that first day and then went to work if feeling well, could she have spread it to others? If so, then I guess if exposed you should wait and stay away from people until at least the third day to see if you are negative?
January 18th, 2022 at 7:43 PM ^
I got Covid (confirmed with a PCR test, which I did because I had cold symptoms and had traveled over New Year's) and I found rapid tests at the store last week. After my symptoms were gone, I tested on four consecutive days. First day still positive, but then three consecutive negative days. I feel confident that I'm no longer contagious. They say you can test positive for up to 90 days after having Covid but three consecutive negative tests tells me I'm ok to move about the cabin.
January 18th, 2022 at 10:43 PM ^
If you're going to see high-risk relatives in person, it's not a bad idea to get tested and hopefully confirm that you're not asymptomatic and contagious.
For instance, I would like to test before I go into my mother-in-law's nursing home. Mother-in-law jokes aside, I'd rather not accidentally kill her *or* the other people in her unit.
January 18th, 2022 at 5:06 PM ^
The way this week is going they will last a day for my family.
January 18th, 2022 at 5:16 PM ^
Between my two kids I have received 8 covid exposure notifications from their school in the last week. They are vaccinated and wear mask in school so at least they don’t have to quarantine. I have a decent stockpile of rapid test (thanks to Colorado for its free at home testing program) but at this point I am only testing them if they have symptoms. If I did it based on these notifications I would need ten test a week.
January 18th, 2022 at 6:52 PM ^
I’ve noticed the difference in approach when in Colorado. Live in Ohio, visit Colorado. Hometown is Adrian. Definitely Mike Marshall btw,
January 18th, 2022 at 5:11 PM ^
It's nice to have this option, but with covid increasingly resembling the common cold, the Test's moment may have already passed.
January 18th, 2022 at 5:39 PM ^
Last time I checked the common cold doesn't kill 2000 people a day. If you're vaxxed and boosted, then sure, but only 30%-40% of the country is boosted
January 18th, 2022 at 6:12 PM ^
According to the CDC director an unknown number of COVID deaths were "with" COVID rather than from COVID (75% had 4 or more comorbidities). An overwhelming majority were over the age of 80. So if we're going to have an honest conversation about this pandemic and actually help people, clinging to these kinds of outrageously fake numbers will not be helpful.
January 18th, 2022 at 6:28 PM ^
That is only true for fully vaccinated people.
January 18th, 2022 at 7:29 PM ^
Nope. This is exactly the kind of Rogan-esque misinformation that is rampant and is largely behind the decision of all those people who end up in ICUs to decline vaccination... which is why they're in the ICUs. Teeba already debunked the "4 comorbidities" myth circulating around.
Furthermore, to count as a "Covid-19 Death" for CDC counting purposes, the death certificate must list Covid-19 as the underlying cause of death (90% of counted deaths) or a "contributing cause" (10%) according to the medical examiner (LINK). These are not "deaths with Covid," again, that is just a Facebook "alternative fact."
If Covid-19 deaths were counted the same way as flu deaths are traditionally counted (no positive test for flu is required, just consistent symptoms), we'd be talking several hundred thousand added to the US counts from 2020 alone, and worldwide the added number would be unfathomable.
January 18th, 2022 at 8:14 PM ^
The comorbidity thing is also can be due to the fact that Covid, when severe, attacks all kinds of parts of your body where there are ACE-2 receptors so blood clotting, high blood pressure, pneumonia, kidney & liver issues, and many other things are caused by Covid and are often listed on the death certificate. This isn't to mention that the majority of Americans over 40 would have a comorbidity of weight alone.
That there are people that still think this thing isn't serious after two years just blows my mind.
January 18th, 2022 at 8:51 PM ^
Yeah that's a great point and I should have said it. In fact, if you look at that link I provided and scroll down to the "Most Frequently Listed Co-Morbidities with Covid-19 Deaths" you'll find a footnote that says there are co-morbidities or other conditions in 95% of Covid-19 deaths according to the death certificates, and the other 5% was probably a failure to list them. That note has been there for a long, long time.
About a year or so into the pandemic, some intrepid Covid Truther (TM) said "AHA! We've caught the CDC in their own web of lies! This proves that effectively 100% of Covid deaths had a co-morbidity and there's no reason for healthy people to be concerned!"
No, just no. A co-morbidity is not the same as a "pre-existing condition" (though it can be, such as diabetes, hypertension, COPD, etc.). If someone dies in a car accident in which their lungs collapsed, they died from a car accident with a co-morbidity of respiratory failure. That didn't make respiratory failure a pre-existing condition that aggravated the risk of dying in the car accident.
The most clear and present comorbidity danger at this point is being unvaccinated.
/rant
January 19th, 2022 at 6:54 AM ^
You don't even seem to realize that this completely contradicts your first point probably because you are so hell bent on rationalizing The Narrative. The CDC director said that the 4 comorbidities in 75% of deaths was "good news, it means the vaccines are working." So that would imply that, in fact, the comorbidities were pre existing. And yet she couldn't give a straight answer when she was asked how many hospitalized were with COVID or from COVID. Fauci specifically stated that the number of child hospitalizations were way overblown because they were counting any kid who was in the hospital for any reason who happened to test positive (since they test everyone.) If you actually apply common sense, you might realize that this has a much larger implication. But that would require some people to completely shift their world view and that is just too much to ask.
January 19th, 2022 at 8:46 AM ^
"If you actually apply common sense,"
You should probably start with yourself. We are in this shitty situation because of people like you.
January 18th, 2022 at 9:43 PM ^
And the misinformation is sitting at 5 upvotes. We're doomed, lol.
January 18th, 2022 at 10:33 PM ^
BUT many hospitals are reporting that 20% to 60% of patients (depending on the hospital) came there for other ailments and tested positivefor COVID. They didn't go to the hospital because of COVID. Also we only know the number of cases, not infections. If only 1 out of 5 infections is officially recorded as a case, we're looking an infection mortality rate closer to .3% or lower instead of 2%. Still a bit higher than the flu, but that denominator could be even larger. Does that mean it's not serious? Hell no. The flu is very serious. The common cold would be serious of millions upon millions all contracted it at the same time and COVID is worse bc it's novel and widespread. There are so many people that are one paper cut away from being hospitalized due to their state of health and COVID is that last straw sometimes. People are bad at assessing relative personal risk vs. population risk. If your healthy and young then COVID is likely not a huge concern. That of course depends on your personal risk tolerance. Many used to happily accept these risks on a local level, but when magnified to a massive global scale where every scenario good and bad is going to play out, it puts the risk into a different perspective. You have to realize this is consuming the lives of every healthcare worker in a brutal way. The people who are communicating to the public see the worst cases every day so there's a built in proximity bias there. On the other side you have people only trying to downplay a serious pandemic bc they are far removed and/or ultra sensitive to any perceived level of authoritarianiam by central gov't. Contemplating your own mortality is scary. What other risks are present that you're not aware of yet that you blindly accept? You and your doctor can probably make the best decision for your situation based on your health history. Much better than listening to a Koala on the internet I'll admit.
January 19th, 2022 at 2:51 AM ^
The flu is very serious. The common cold would be serious [if] millions upon millions all contracted it at the same time
What the hell did I just read. Millions upon millions of people do contract colds at the same time and it does not cause a virtual collapse of our health care system. Same for the flu. The knock-on effects of Covid-19's vacuuming of health care resources haven't been seen in this country since at least the Spanish Flu and perhaps not even then. And it's almost entirely by choice.
January 19th, 2022 at 3:48 PM ^
Yes, but common cold is caused by many different viruses. There's about 24 million active cases and growing right now from just Covid (in the U.S.). I don't have the exact data on how many people have a cold at any given time. I've read anywhere from 2% to 10%. So roughly 32 million Americans (at most) at any given time. So you would be wrong or right depending on the year. Everyone will be exposed to Covid. Idk of everyone is exposed to the same cold virus. It's possible I guess. Either way I agree that much of our response is not in proportion to the actual risk as we now understand it. I don't agree that the number of active cold cases at any given time vs. the number of Covid cases is common knowledge and warrants a "what the hell did I just read", but maybe your coming from a place of more expertise than I.
January 18th, 2022 at 5:14 PM ^
I was able to order via the USPS site:
January 18th, 2022 at 5:24 PM ^
We just ordered some as well. As I have a few bumps in my medical history, we do remain vigilant here.
January 18th, 2022 at 5:56 PM ^
Bumps, you say? I hear DHS has a copious amount of antibiotics that will clear up the bumps.