The White Home has announced that folks will be capable of order free COVID-19 checks from COVIDTests.gov beginning on Wednesday, January nineteenth. This follows a promise that the federal government can be organising an internet site to distribute 500 million checks, which President Joe Biden introduced in December.
You’ll solely need to put in two items of information to get a check shipped to you — your title and tackle. In its announcement, the White Home stated the checks will ship via the US Postal Service “inside 7–12 days of ordering.” At the moment, the restrict is 4 checks per residential tackle.
To order their checks, the one two issues folks will want are their title and residential mailing tackle. Exams will usually ship via the mail inside 7-12 days of ordering, and be delivered First Class via the U.S. Postal Service.
— The White Home (@WhiteHouse) January 14, 2022
On Wednesday of this week, a White Home advisor stated the location “ought to be on-line by this weekend.” Technically, the federal government has made that deadline — you possibly can go to COVIDTests.gov proper now, although it’s at the moment exhibiting a touchdown web page letting you already know that checks will likely be obtainable Wednesday and that you just received’t need to put in a bank card quantity to get one.
The USPS isn’t simply accountable for getting the checks to folks. It was additionally tapped to develop an internet site that must take care of probably hundreds of thousands of individuals making an attempt to get a check on the similar time, in response to Protocol. The report cites a authorities official who stated that it’s “taking our web site launch very significantly” and that it “didn’t begin from scratch” constructing the location. The US Digital Service will even be serving to to launch the location and supply assist when wanted, Protocol says.
Given the federal government’s less-than-stellar fame with launching healthcare web sites, there’s some skepticism about whether or not the location will be capable of deal with the site visitors — and a few have rightfully identified that a few of the most susceptible folks may have difficulties getting on-line and navigating an internet site. An announcement from the White Home says that you just’ll additionally be capable of name a hotline to order checks if you happen to’re unable to entry the web site and that the federal government will “work with nationwide and native community-based organizations to assist the nation’s hardest-hit and highest-risk communities in requesting checks.”
