In a partnership with the Biden Administration, the United State Postal Service has begun its shipping of a half-billion COVID-19 test kits to Americans.
Under the President’s authority, one billion at-home rapid tests were purchased to give to families for free. The first shipments went out January 19 and were mailed directly to households. Remaining tests will be kept in reserve.
All orders in the continental United States will be sent through the USPS’s First Class Package Service, with shipments to Alaska, Hawaii and the U.S. Territories sent through Priority Mail.
Postmaster General and CEO Louis DeJoy notes the 650,000 employees of the USPS are ready to deliver the tests, and are pleased to play a critical role in supporting the “health needs of the American public.”
To order free test kits, families can visit COVIDtests.gov, where they will receive the first four at no charge.
In order to meet these needs, the USPS implemented additional staffing, invested in new processing equipment and operational efficiencies, and expanded facility footprints.
This isn’t the first time the USPS has played a health administration role in a national pandemic. A law passed in 1813 allowed free mailings for a lifesaving vaccine against smallpox — one of the deadliest and most-transmissible diseases in American history. Post offices nationwide also helped respond to America’s outbreak of yellow fever in 1888, as well as the country’s bout with severe influenza in 1918 and 1919.
