Why It’s Still So Complicated to Get Free At-Home COVID-19 Tests
For a while, the latest developments on at-home COVID-19 tests seemed like nothing but good news. Earlier in the month, the Biden Administration announced that beginning Jan. 15, private health insurers would be required to cover the costs of such tests for all insured members. Just three days later, on Jan. 18, the government launched a website that allows Americans to order free tests that will be delivered directly to their homes. So what’s not to like? Well, as my colleague Abigail Abrams reports, plenty.
Start with those free tests from the new website. The government admitted up front that it would take anywhere from seven to 12 days for the tests to be shipped and received—which is better than getting no test at all, but too slow to address the recent national spike in Omicron cases. What’s more, consumers are limited to four tests per household, which obviously does not cover families of five or more and is way too few for people like frontline workers who need to test regularly.
Then there are the new rules involving insurance coverage. This program is more generous than the government one, with insurers required to cover eight tests per insured person per month. But the rules don’t apply to people on Medicare or Medicaid or, obviously, to the roughly 28 million Americans who have no insurance at all.
In addition, the process of actually getting reimbursed is not simple. A Kaiser Family Foundation analysis found that of 13 private insurers with at least 1 million members, only three provided an online option for reimbursement—most required customers to mail in physical forms, and one required that forms be faxed.
It gets more complicated still: not only are customers required to submit the receipt from their purchase along with their insurance forms, but in some cases they’re also required to cut the bar code off the home test box and mail that in as well. Then there’s the matter of just where you buy your test. The new federal rules encourage—but do not require—insurers to designate “preferred” pharmacies where consumers can get their test covered up front without any out-of-pocket expense. But as any American who’s gone shopping for tests has discovered, they’re often not to be found. If a preferred pharmacy is out of stock and you have to buy your tests elsewhere, the insurer is required to reimburse just $12 per test—hardly adequate when the average cost of the tests range from $17.98 for a pack of two up to $50 for a single test.
Then too, some insurers are placing limits on how the tests can be used, requiring customers to attest that they will not use them for purposes such as travel, recreation, entertainment or even school. As Sabrina Corlette, a research professor and co-director of Georgetown University’s Center on Health Insurance Reforms, told Abigail, “What if I have to use this for my kid to make sure he can go to school? Am I now at risk of insurance fraud?”
Clearly, any help consumers can get in obtaining and affording at-home tests is better than no help at all. But as with so much else in the U.S. health care system, nothing is as simple as it seems.
More than 354.7 million people around the world had been diagnosed with COVID-19 as of 3 a.m. E.T. today, and more than 5.6 million people have died. On Jan. 24, there were over 3.3 million new cases and 7,789 new deaths confirmed globally.
Here's how the world as a whole is currently trending, in terms of cases:
And in terms of deaths:
Here's where daily cases have risen or fallen over the last 14 days, shown in confirmed cases per 100,000 residents:
And here's every country that has reported over 5 million cases:
The U.S. had recorded more than 71.7 million coronavirus cases as of 3 a.m. E.T. today. More than 868,000 people have died. On Jan. 24, there were more than 1 million new cases and 1,963 new deaths confirmed in the U.S.
Here's how the country as a whole is currently trending in terms of cases:
And in terms of deaths:
Here's where daily cases have risen or fallen over the last 14 days, shown in confirmed cases per 100,000 residents:
All numbers unless otherwise specified are from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, and are accurate as of Jan. 25, 12 a.m. E.T. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts, click here.
WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW
Pfizer and BioNTech announced today that they've started testing a new formulation of their COVID-19 vaccine specifically tweaked to target the Omicron variant, as my colleague Alice Park reports. The study is a relatively small one, involving just over 1,400 healthy adults ages 18 to 55. The volunteers will be divided into three groups: one will consist of people who have received two doses of the current Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and will receive one or two doses of the new Omicron formulation; another will consist of people who have received two vaccines and a booster and will get one more dose of the Omicron-specific jab. The remaining subjects are entirely unvaccinated and will receive three spaced doses of the new formulation.
COVID-19 hospitalizations have fallen in the U.S. for the fourth consecutive day, with the seven-day average at a relatively low 156,042 as of yesterday, reports the Wall Street Journal. The trend matches an overall decline in new cases since the beginning of this month. The drop in hospitalizations is especially pronounced in the northeast, reports CNN, with inpatient totals falling 11% over the past week alone. The midwest is also showing marked improvement, with hospitalizations down by 6%.
A report from UNICEF has found that more than 616 million children worldwide remain affected by full or partial school closures due to the pandemic. The impact is worst in low- and middle-income regions where the disruption in schooling has left up to 70% of 10 year olds in some countries either entirely illiterate or able to read but not fully comprehend simple text. The figure before the pandemic was 53%. In South Africa, which was ground zero for the Omicron outbreak, children have fallen about a full school year behind where they should be at this point in their education.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) yesterday removed two monoclonal antibody drugs from the list of approved treatments for COVID-19, saying that they are ineffective against the Omicron variant, which the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says is now responsible for up to 99% of new infections in the U.S. The two drugs removed from the approved list are bamlanivimab and etesevimab (administered together) and REGEN-COV (casirivimab and imdevimab). The FDA has not banned the drugs entirely, permitting their use in cases in which people are known to be infected with a strain other than Omicron, as well as to battle future strains against which they might be effective.
In a setback for New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a state judge ruled yesterday that an executive order requiring masks or proof of vaccination at all indoor gatherings was enacted unlawfully, reports the New York Times. The six-page decision by a state supreme court justice ruled that the governor and the state health department lacked the authority to impose the order without the approval of the state legislature. State Attorney General Letitia James announced that she would appeal the ruling. While the Supreme Court decision affects statewide rules, it leaves local rules—such as New York City’s mask mandate for schools—in place.
Thanks for reading. We hope you find the Coronavirus Brief newsletter to be a helpful tool to navigate this very complex situation, and welcome feedback at coronavirus.brief@time.com. If you have specific questions you'd like us to answer, please send them to covidquestions@time.com.
If you were forwarded this and want to sign up to receive it daily, click here.
Today's newsletter was written by Jeffrey Kluger and edited by Angela Haupt.
沒有留言:
張貼留言