Although none of the free COVID-19 tests sent by the U.S. Postal Service this year will have expired, officials acknowledge that many of those now arriving in mailboxes will likely see their useful life Sold out in a few months.
So far this season, about 20 million of the 32 million tests ordered through COVIDTests.gov have been shipped. All are supposed to have a shelf life of at least two months, according to the federal Strategic Preparedness and Response Administration (ASPR).
“We are probably getting to tests that we had in stock longer because, while we were buying, we had an increase in receipt and now we are not buying as much. We’re already a little bit past the peak of COVID,” Arlene Joyner, director of ASPR’s Office of Industrial Supply Chain and Management, told CBS News.
Joyner’s office oversaw the purchase and delivery of the 12 test marks that COVIDTests.gov has supplied in its seven rounds to date.
“The goal of that program is really to get people using these tests now, from the fall through the winter, because we know that’s the season when people get the sickest, especially with respiratory diseases and they are preparing for family reunions,” he said.
Joyner said ASPR has always used a “first in, first out” approach, reserving the oldest, but still usable, tests to ship first. The same applies to the 7 million tests sent each week to places like food banks and libraries.
“This is to prevent inventory from stagnating and sitting on shelves. It’s no use if it’s there. And the worst thing is that it expires and we have to throw it away,” Joyner said.
Many kits were also purchased earlier during the pandemic, at a time when many manufacturers still could not prove to the Food and Drug Administration that their tests actually had a longer shelf life.
This is why over-the-counter tests often have expiration dates that have been extended by the FDA indicating that they are still valid for use long after the initial dates printed on their labels.
ASPR uses databases to track its test reserves at seven warehouses, Joyner said, to avoid sending tests that are too old.
«Our system is quite solid. “We’re pretty sure they shouldn’t get anything that’s less than the dating we expect,” he said.
