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The White House announced on Wednesday a $1 billion purchase of at-home rapid tests for Covid-19, a move aimed at scaling up test production in the U.S. and quadrupling the availability of the tests by December. “In the past few months, testing has increased — particularly at-home testing, a convenient option that came to market earlier this year. To meet this increased demand, the president’s plan ramps up both the availability of tests and access to free testing,” said Jeff Zients, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, at a briefing with reporters. (Bender, 10/6)

By December, 200 million rapid tests will be available to Americans each month, with tens of millions more arriving on the market in the coming weeks, Jeffrey D. Zients, the White House’s Covid-19 coordinator, said at a news conference. Mr. Zients also said the administration would double the number of sites in the federal government’s free pharmacy testing program, to 20,000. The changes reflect the administration’s growing emphasis on at-home testing as a tool for slowing the spread of Covid-19. (Weiland, 10/6)

In September, President Joe Biden announced a $2 billion investment in rapid testing for community health centers, food bank and schools, and also announced that retailers including Walmart, Amazon and Kroger will sell at-home rapid test kits at cost for the next three months. But demand has outpaced supply for those tests so far, with shelves empty across the country. The administration is seeking to quickly ramp up that supply. The $1 billion announcement also comes days after the US Food and Drug Administration authorized Flowflex, an at-home antigen test from ACON laboratories, which will accelerate the pace of rapid tests hitting the shelves. (Klein and Vazquez, 10/6)

Senate Bill 2038 is now part of the Texas Health & Safety Code. The statute does these three things: Makes it illegal for freestanding ERs to charge an individual or third-party (like your insurance company) a facility fee or an observation fee for a drive thru service; Requires the businesses disclose the prices they charge for COVID tests, vaccines and any other associated fees; Prohibits freestanding ERs from charging more than 200% for the same or similar service offered by healthcare facilities in the same or nearest county during a declared state of disaster (like the COVID-19 pandemic). (Davis, 10/7)

Company officials said a clerical error has led to about 2,000 people, including some in the Waco area, being sent an $85 bill for a free COVID-19 test administered a year ago. Some who were tested in October last year at a free COVID-19 testing site set up under the auspices of the Waco-McLennan County Public Health District at McLennan Community College have reported receiving $85 bills from Sonoran Desert Pathology Associates, a test processing lab in Pasadena, California. (Witherspoon, 10/6)

The Iowa Department of Public Health on Wednesday announced its testing kits will now get your results faster. IDPH partnered with the Iowa Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management and the State Hygienic Lab to launch seven test pick-up sites that will get your tests to the lab within the same day. Before, the Iowa State Hygenic Lab would ship out the test kits to your home within two days of receiving your online request. Then, you’d take the test back to the lab and results would be available within about 24 hours. That means it could take at least two to three days to even find out if you are positive for the virus. (Ricossa, 10/6)

The Montgomery County school system — the state’s largest — has placed more than 5,000 students into quarantine in about five weeks of classes. ... Montgomery school officials made efforts last month to reduce quarantines by shifting practices and doing rapid tests on-site of potentially symptomatic students. But some parents say students who have lost a lot during 18 months of pandemic learning are still losing too much in-person school. (St. George, 10/6)

It’s the critical aspect of the fight against the pandemic that the U.S. is still figuring out nearly two years after the first documented cases of COVID-19, which has claimed more than 700,000 American lives: coronavirus testing. At first, testing supply was extremely limited with long lab turnaround times, and only a handful of Americans could access them before things improved as tests became more widely available. Then suddenly, testing demand dropped as mass vaccinations began. (Vann, 10/7)