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The government has earmarked $600 million in funding to once again provide free at-home Covid-19 testing kits to all U.S. residents.Starting Monday, September 25, up to four free tests can be ordered per household as the number of coronavirus cases continues to increase across the country.Orders for the free tests can be placed online at COVIDTests.gov and delivery will be provided free by the United States Postal Service. The kits are intended for use through the end of this year and will come with instructions on how to verify if a test's expiration date has been extended. Tests will be shipped starting October 2 and will not be affected by a potential government shutdown if Congress doesn't pass a funding bill by the end of this month.Dawn O'Connell, assistant secretary for preparedness and response at the Health and Human Services Department said, "If there is a demand for these tests, we want to make sure that they're made available to the American people for free in this way." She added the website to order the free testing kits will remain functional to receive orders at least through the holidays and possibly longer if officials are seeing an increase in cases.The government had offered free testing kits through the same website since January 2022, but stopped taking orders in June in an effort to keep enough supplies on hand. Now that officials have seen an uptick in the number of COVID-related hospitalizations for the last eight weeks, officials decided it was time to relaunch the program."These critical investments will strengthen our nation's production levels of domestic at-home COVID-19 rapid tests and help mitigate the spread of the virus," said Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra.This upcoming round of free at-home testing kits follows four previous rounds in which the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response and the U.S. Postal Service provided over 755 million free tests to households across the country.For more local news, click here.

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