Approximately 336,000 rapid-response antigen tests for COVID-19 are headed to home health and hospice agencies, Admiral Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for health, said Monday at a press conference.
“As of last week, we distributed more than 50 million of these tests to protect the vulnerable in nursing homes, assisted living, home health, tribes, historically Black colleges and universities, and to provide an unparalleled resource to our nation’s governors to keep schools and universities open and provide immediate testing for first responders in critical infrastructure,” he said.
The tests to be sent to home health agencies and hospices are part of a larger effort to distribute or send to the stockpile more than 8 million Abbott BinaxNOW tests; 394,000 will go to HBCUs, 421,000 to assisted living facilities, almost 2 million more will go to nursing homes and almost 4 million will go to the states and their governors.
Americans, Giroir said, need to to “double down” on public health measures such as social distancing, avoiding crowds, the universal wearing of masks, good hand hygiene and cleaning of surfaces, testing and contact tracing to avoid the need for community-wide shutdowns affecting workplaces and schools.
Reporting by Danielle Brown.
