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Americans will be able to order another round of free at-home COVID-19 tests supplied by the U.S. government beginning next week.
"If you already ordered free tests, tonight, I'm announcing you can order another group of tests. Go to Covidtest.gov starting next week and you can get more tests," President Joe Biden said during his first State of the Union address on Tuesday (March 2) night via CNN.
The U.S. government had previously allowed citizens to order free at-home COVID-19 tests through covidtests.gov or by calling (800)-232-0233, with a limit of four tests sent to each residential address.
The website has since been updated to confirm that four more tests will be able to order beginning next week.
The free at-home tests were part of President Biden's initial plan in December to make half a billion tests accessible to Americans through mail amid the then-ongoing nationwide Omicron variant surge.
The Biden administration initially made 500 million free tests available to U.S. citizens, however, less than 300 million were ordered, White House assistant press secretary Kevin Munoz confirmed to CNN.
The tests are expected to take about seven to 12 days to ship after the order is placed, according to the White House.
COVID-19 has infected about 79.1 million people and resulted in more than 952,000 deaths in the U.S. since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, according to data by Johns Hopkins University obtained by CNN.
"Let's stop looking at COVID as a partisan dividing line and see it for what it is: a God-awful disease," Biden's verified presidential Twitter account posted after his announcement. "Let's stop seeing each other as enemies -- and start seeing each other for who we really are: fellow Americans."
Two administration officials told CNN that the White House plans to roll out another new strategy in relation to the next phase of its COVID-19 pandemic response on Wednesday (March 2), which is expected to involve less disruptions of daily pre-pandemic life while still combating the unpredictable virus and possible new variants.