Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Washington, Iowa and Colorado all have programs to offer free COVID testing to some or all of their residents. So do Boston, Philadelphia and New York.

Transcript

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

Yesterday, President Biden promised hundreds of millions of rapid COVID tests will be freely available to Americans starting next month. A growing number of cities and states are already doing that, handing out COVID test kits at libraries or mailing them to people's homes. Experts say more is needed. From member station WBUR, Gabrielle Emanuel has the story.

GABRIELLE EMANUEL, BYLINE: In Lowell, Mass., there's a long line of cars. The reward at the front - free rapid tests. Carol Mehegan (ph) and her niece, Chantelle (ph), showed up on foot.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: There's two tests in each box.

CAROL MEHEGAN: Thank you. Oh, my God. This is fantastic.

EMANUEL: Lowell is a hot spot in a state that has spiking COVID numbers. Mehegan lives here with most of her extended family under one roof.

MEHEGAN: We have my mother upstairs with my sister. Chantelle is across from me. And my daughter is up top with her family.

EMANUEL: But they don't visit each other much. Chantelle has a newborn, and Mehegan's mother is 84. They're trying to be cautious, but for Christmas, they're getting together. They've decided on a scaled-back gathering of 15 people. Mehegan knows when she's going to use her free rapid test.

MEHEGAN: Oh, I'm using it by the end of the week before Christmas Day.

EMANUEL: Her test is one of 2 million being distributed for free across Massachusetts. Governor Charlie Baker says they're earmarked for cities and towns with the highest percentage of families below the poverty line.

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CHARLIE BAKER: The goal here is to help those families who face the greatest financial hardship that might have difficulty attaining rapid tests at a pharmacy.

EMANUEL: New Hampshire, New Jersey, Washington, Iowa, Ohio, Maryland and Colorado are among states also offering free COVID testing. Several cities are joining in, too. In some places, all the free tests have been snapped up already. Lindsey Dawson of the Kaiser Family Foundation tracks COVID testing availability. She says states are stepping up to fill a gap left by the federal government.

LINDSEY DAWSON: The federal government had really invested in vaccines and making vaccines freely and widely available for people and hadn't really done that with tests.

EMANUEL: Dawson says access has been up and down. Just a few weeks ago, things looked good, but not now.

DAWSON: The supply has really dwindled, even today compared to what I saw yesterday.

EMANUEL: One reason supply isn't keeping up with demand is test manufacturers are being cautious. Atul Grover of the Association of American Medical Colleges says that's because in the H1N1 flu pandemic in 2009, their test kits remained unsold.

ATUL GROVER: And so I think companies are very reluctant to go ahead and scale up production unless they have a guarantee that someone's going to buy them.

EMANUEL: He'd like to see the federal government guarantee massive bulk purchasing of rapid tests like it did for vaccines. Yesterday, President Biden said...

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PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: The federal government will purchase one-half billion - that's not million; billion with a B - additional at-home rapid tests, with deliveries starting in January.

EMANUEL: Half a billion sounds like a lot, but Grover says it's not enough. It's less than two tests for every American. He would like to see far more guaranteed federal purchases.

GROVER: Five hundred million would be enough if we were talking about a supply for a week and then we were told, and the next 500 million are going to come, you know, every week starting in February. Great. I'd be less worried.

EMANUEL: Grover says this isn't just about preventing the virus' spread. It is also necessary for treatment. The new oral COVID medications, like the one the FDA authorized today, need to be taken within a few days of symptoms starting, and that requires being able to find a COVID test. For NPR News, I'm Gabrielle Emanuel. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.