covid-19
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The US is setting up a website to request at-home COVID tests

The website is expected to be available in January.

A COVID test

The U.S. will give people access to at-home COVID-19 tests through a government-run website.

Photo: South_agency via Getty Images

Starting in January, Americans should be able to order at-home COVID-19 tests through a government-run website, said Jen Psaki, White House press secretary, in a press conference on Tuesday.

The specifics of the program and website are still murky, as the government is currently "working through ... very important details," including how many tests a family can order at one time and what the website will look like, Psaki said. The website will be available as soon as the at-home tests are available, she said.

The White House announced Tuesday that it is working to ship out as many as 500 million at-home test kits to Americans and is opening new testing sites as cases begin to spike due to the quickly-spreading omicron variant of COVID-19.

This isn't the first time the government had bold plans for a large-scale testing website. In the early stages of the pandemic, former president Trump had plans for a website in partnership with Google to determine whether people should get tested, but the website quickly fell short of the capabilities that Trump had promised.

Nat Rubio-Licht

Nat Rubio-Licht is a Los Angeles-based news writer at Protocol. They graduated from Syracuse University with a degree in newspaper and online journalism in May 2020. Prior to joining the team, they worked at the Los Angeles Business Journal as a technology and aerospace reporter.

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