13 ms·

Order your rapid tests from the USPS (US only)

252 points by mattl 5y ago

anon3970970 5y ago
USPS infrastructure has a long-standing role in civil defense. https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-history/postal-service-role-in-civil-defense.pdf https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-history/postal-serv...
- RspecMAuthortah 5y ago
  Yeah and helping us defeat who he shan't be named in the 2020 election.
fotta 5y ago
Ordering is super easy. I'm glad they're using USPS's existing infrastructure so we don't get a healthcare.gov 2.0. We'll see how actual shipping goes.
- dannyr 5y ago
  The 2.0 version of healthcare.gov is actually pretty good. My bet is that it's probably using the same infrastructure and is built by the US Digital Service (https://www.usds.gov/ https://www.usds.gov/) and/or 18F (https://18f.gsa.gov/ https://18f.gsa.gov/)
  - fotta 5y ago
    yeah I meant healthcare.gov 1.0 round 2
thebigman433 5y ago
Cant have them sent to college addresses, which really sucks. College students are probably some of the ones that should have it most, especially since testing at a lot of campuses is incredibly lackluster. Really hope they can whitelist university owned addresses
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- morpheuskafka 5y ago
  Universities are kind of weird in the way USPS treats them. They won't sort the mail to dormitories by address like they would for an apartment building; instead they make the university do it. So part of the issue may be that the system is not coded to track each dorm room as an individual delivery point so they can't give each person an individual order limit even if they marked the addresses as residential.
  - brimble 5y ago
    Probably because dorm rooms change occupants at a much higher rate than apartments.
    - paxys 5y ago
      What does that have to do with anything?
      - brimble 5y ago
        It means a much higher volume of change-of-address requests and mis-delivered mail.
  - thebigman433 5y ago
    Yea all of our apartments/graduate complexes are listed under custom street addresses. USPS does deliver to individual buildings here, but only to the front desk. The error code on the site says its listed as a business address. Pretty unfortunate
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- thebean11 5y ago
  Why not? Does the system think the dorms aren't residential addresses?
danso 5y ago
I was definitely worried for the US Digital Services team when I heard President Biden promise a website that would within a few weeks handle test orders for millions of households. But using USPS infrastructure was definitely the obvious and right solution, considering how many critical and secure online services USPS.com already handles, like change of address and informed delivery (i.e. scans of physical mail emailed to you daily)
- KennyBlanken 5y ago
  Informed delivery is just them leveraging the scanning and storing of the front and back of every piece of mail shipped in the US which they've been doing for over a decade and totally isn't creepy as hell...but yes. Singing up for this was amazingly easy. I think it took me under a minute to fill in and submit. Instant page load and form submission processing. No captcha checks. No weird javascript address validators (half of them think my address is malformed). No needlessly "cute" page design/graphics. No problems with any of the slew of privacy and ad-blocking tools I have installed. Filled in my address and email, clicked submit, done. Seconds later, I had an email from them confirming it. This is proof that government can work just fine. Guarantee that if this had been a private contracted thing we would have ended up with some monstrosity of browser-choking javascript, needlessly cutesy page design, etc. Can we please bring this sort of simplicity and efficiency to paying income tax / calculating withholdings and W4s? Or, FFS, everything the IRS does? And how about a national ID system, please? We already have nearly 1% of the US population in such a system: the DoD's Common Access Card. Lessons learned from that could easily be applied to a national digital/physical ID card. The crap I (and especially my parents) had to go through to prove to my DMV that we were honest-to-god citizen and could have a RealID drivers license...which isn't actually useful for anything except getting on a plane or into a federal building...was insane. And embarrassing, for a "first world" nation in this day and age.
  - evan_ 5y ago
    > No weird javascript address validators (half of them think my address is malformed). There's really no excuse for those- The USPS provides an address validation API that's easy to use, accurate, and free: https://www.usps.com/business/web-tools-apis/ https://www.usps.com/business/web-tools-apis/ When you're literally the final word on what is, and is not, a deliverable address, you don't need a regex. You can just do a database lookup. Presumably they're also leveraging the same address matching technology they use with real mail in that API as well.
buscoquadnary 5y ago
So I had a sister that got sick, she took a test, not COVID. She was still sick a little while later, another test another negative. She finally took a third one and that returned a COVID positive test. In the meantime my children have been sick for a little while, and we got one of them tested and it was negative; however right before they got sick we had interaction with someone who had a positive COVID test shortly thereafter. I am starting to wonder at the efficacy of the tests and is it that they just can't catch Omnicron as well? Are my kids really just sick with some other random thing despite dozens of people in our social circle getting COVID? I'm just wondering at this point if there is a reason for the mass testing, because it doesn't really let you know anything except whether or not you have COVID and you'll get better or get worse. I can understand in hospitals or something like that, but in the general population I am failing to understand as it seems Omicron is incredibly virulent, and you can spread before you have symptoms, so what is the end game with the mass testing?
- azinman2 5y ago
  People like myself would act very differently to a cold than COVID. It changes also needs to isolate/quarantine, and helps us get a handle on asymptomatic cases who otherwise would go around continuing to infect others.
  - djrogers 5y ago
    > helps us get a handle on asymptomatic cases This won't help us get a handle on asymptomatic cases - to do that, we'd have to be able to test everyone on a frequent and consistent basis. This program doesn't even cover one test for everyone in my house, let alone weekly or more frequent testing. And aside from this, I have to spend hours looking for any available rapid tests to buy around here, and if/when I have some, I can't afford to use them on randomized or even weekly testing.
- thescriptkiddie 5y ago
  The rapid tests have a very high false negative rate regardless of variant, but a very low false positive rate. They should not be trusted as proof that you do not have COVID, only as proof that you do have it.
paulsmith 5y ago
In spite of appearances, I'm not sure if they went with existing USPS web resources, at least on the frontend. Looks like custom build using a very typical modern managed AWS services stack. In any case, interesting new state of the art for government, compared, let's say, to the HealthCare.gov launch. At first I thought it would just be a new SKU in the USPS.com website. But it looks like they rolled something custom, using CloudFront, S3, Route53 (two new domain names, special.usps.com and special-api.usps.com for POSTing the order form JSON to), API Gateway (and probably Lambda and DynamoDB): https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQP9G1cWiICGOoBAjrUm6XGPK7ERwl2TrpxnWpJlkuAVdnsP2tkD9q77ZxFPvkDhtOby-cDjr9cfbPe/pub https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQP9G1cWiICGOoBA...
- danso 5y ago
  Not sure if USDS (U.S. Digital Services) team worked specifically on the covidtests.gov rollout, but USDS was largely borne out of the dev effort that rescued Healthcare.gov: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/07/the-secret-startup-saved-healthcare-gov-the-worst-website-in-america/397784/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/07/the-s... > The spectacular failure of Healthcare.gov at launch led to the creation of what came to be known as the Tech Surge, a group of Silicon Valley developers who rescued the website from disorganized contractors and bureaucratic mismanagement. That group gave rise to the U.S. Digital Service and, to a lesser extent, 18F, two government agencies now working to improve the state of federal technology
  - buscoquadnary 5y ago
    As for 18F for all else wondering it stands for where there office is located on 18th and F street. That being said I think they should really really should maybe give some thought to renaming their group.
  - llimllib 5y ago
    > Not sure if USDS (U.S. Digital Services) team worked specifically on the covidtests.gov rollout They did[1]: > The United States Digital Service, which grew out of the effort to rescue healthcare.gov, is also assisting with the launch. "We have the best tech teams across our administration working hard to make this a success, and we think we're well positioned to do that," [1]: https://www.protocol.com/bulletins/white-house-covid-test-website https://www.protocol.com/bulletins/white-house-covid-test-we...
mattl 5y ago
I'm back at work today after being off for a week with COVID-19, and I'm lucky that I got some tests at CVS when I could.
ChicagoBoy11 5y ago
Man, I was so bummed I didn't have to make an account and everything /s I mean, for what it's worth, this gets high marks from me for ease of use and seems to be consistent with just about every advice you see surface here about getting your users through an ordering funnel. Of course the fact that the cost is 0 here makes it a simpler problem for them, but given that it is a gov't project I could have envisioned a lot, lot worse.
- paxys 5y ago
  What works in their favor is they have a verified database of every address in the US. For this purpose that is, effectively, your account.
  - atwebb 5y ago
    Would it matter? The address has to be valid and once input it is the unique key. I didn't see any address validation on my end (which is also an option for other forms).
    - paxys 5y ago
      The worst case is you input someone else's address (whether by mistake or on purpose) and...they end up getting free COVID tests. Not really something worth validating. USPS does have ways to validate your address, for example when you set up mail forwarding or the daily digest thing.
      - joezydeco 5y ago
        They also offer free access to this validator: https://www.usps.com/business/web-tools-apis/address-information-api.pdf https://www.usps.com/business/web-tools-apis/address-informa...
  - flax 5y ago
    And it's really nice that they're actually using the physical address for this instead of the given email address. Especially since some imbecile put my email address in when ordering her tests. I was concerned that I would not be able to order my own since my email was already used. But no, I was able to. USPS gets points for practicality and execution, but is yet another service that performs zero email address verification and ends up with idiots that don't know their own email sending me their info.
adenner 5y ago
This is on top of the 8 Home Rapid Antigen Tests per person per month that private insurance plans are now required to cover. (Check with your insurance provider for details as the roll out has been a bit chaotic) (Also not going into the issues of obtainability, fairness of paying out of pocket and waiting for reimbursement, Medicare and Medicaid not being included, etc.)
molbioguy 5y ago
-- deleted -- wrote without sufficiently thinking. Something is certainly better than nothing, though I think this will come up short for a lot of families since it's limited to one residential address.
- azinman2 5y ago
  It’s 4 free tests that are hard to get right now. How is that useless?
  - djrogers 5y ago
    A one time grant of 4 tests for a family of 5 is better than a kick in the shins, but it's not really going to make much of a dent in the frequency that my family can test. Also there was a lot of talk about getting these out for lower income families - guess what, they're more likely to have multiple generations living under one roof, so limiting this to 4 per house is even worse for them.
    - adamrezich 5y ago
      why do people need to test all the time these days? what's the point? I understand having a couple tests on hand, maybe even one or two for every person in the household, if you're really paranoid and you want to see if the symptoms someone has started having might be related to covid instead of just being a cold or whatever, and you want to do it at home instead of rushing to urgent care to check. but what's gained from testing with "frequency"—especially now that it sure seems like the bulk of the deadliness of the pandemic is pretty much done with at this point?
      - djrogers 5y ago
        > why do people need to test all the time these days? We don't! I've had to use a bunch of these lately, as you are supposed to test twice if you have symptoms and test negative the first time (yeah - read the instructions!), and it's cold&flu season. My entire family has had cold and flu symptoms multiple times in the past 2 months - that's 10 tests each time if we're following protocol.
jjoe 5y ago
UPS is effectively acting like a CDN here. Stocking up on COVID tests right at the edge (your local USPS distribution store) and shipping it off immediately when ordered. Hmmm interesting...
- buscoquadnary 5y ago
  I know it sounds dumb but I have always been super interested in Supply Chain and logistics networks and digital networks because of the fascinating graphs they produce and how complex and fascinating they are. I think your analogy is apt.
- paxys 5y ago
  USPS* is acting like a retailer and following patterns of distribution and logistics that have been in place for centuries. Not everything is about software..
  - ncallaway 5y ago
    USPS can be acting like many things. If someone is more familiar with a CDN that the traditional retail logistics and distributions infrastructure, then it would probably be more helpful of them to think of the situation using that analogy. USPS is acting both like a retailer, and as a sort of an analogue to a CDN. Both can be helpful models in understanding how this works.
YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo 5y ago
Is it really that hard to get tests in the US? They are everywhere in abundance in Germany, France and the Netherlands.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- djrogers 5y ago
  A month ago you could pick up as many as you wanted at almost any drug store, but now they're sold out everywhere, and disappear off the shelves as fast as they appear. It's the new toilet paper...
maxbaines 5y ago
In the UK Whilst ordered through the gov.uk site, which is super easy and clear (thanks to government digital services https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/government-digital-service https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/government-digit...) the distribution of lateral flow is via Royal Mail and the PCR tests is or was mid 2020 delivered by Amazon
- alibarber 5y ago
  When I was visiting in December for a month I literally said ‘wow’ when a pack of 7 dropped through my letterbox less than a day after ordering. I have to admit that I do think they’re on the right track with this - it’s certainly better than some other European countries that were initially getting a lot of praise at the start of the pandemic.
  - maxbaines 5y ago
    Yes and great, I agree, the UK press have reported shortages of lateral flow tests recently but only this week I had exactly the same experience as you.
tiahura 5y ago
What's the point? If you have a fever and are coughing and sneezing - stay home! If your fever is high or you are having trouble breathing - see a doctor. If someone you spend a lot of time around is sick, wear a good mask and avoid people as much as possible for a few days to make sure you don't have it too. Or, are we supposed to be testing asymptomatic people? If so, then we're going to need a lot more than four.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  >What's the point? Political points, and/or plausible deniability for leaders to be able to say they did something.
  - hatware 5y ago
    Ding ding ding ding ding! What a healthy use of tax-payer funds. To create a show for all of us. Give them bread and circuses, or something.
    - thebigman433 5y ago
      It is still legitimately useful. Positive test means you can get sick leave at a lot of places, even if you dont have any sick time left. This is a tiny amount of money and for a generally good thing.
- kirykl 5y ago
  Historically tests have been used to help healthcare providers differentiate to prescribe targeted most effective therapeutics
  - bigyellow 5y ago
    And historically vaccines used to provide immunity against disease.
- evan_ 5y ago
  Many people can't just stay home from work unless they have an actual positive test. For a lot of workplaces a home test isn't enough, you need a PCR test, but this can ideally help you know if you need to go to the trouble.
0xbadcafebee 5y ago
Anyone know if there's an easy way to get PCR tests in the US? I've got the at-home antigen kit, but if I actually think I have COVID, I want it registered somehow so the state counts me in their test numbers. And I want to actually know if I've had it and not get a false negative.
- paxys 5y ago
  If you do a lab PCR test the results will make their way to the official state data set. Ways to get one: - Go through your doctor or insurance provider - Go to a private clinic - See if your city or state has partnered with a testing company
- mxuribe 5y ago
  My current employer actually mobilizes phlebotomists to come to your home/office for what you need (like Uber for diagnostic testing...including covid tests)...of course for zip codes that are currently covered: https://covidtesting.scarlethealth.com/scarlet/ccrz__CCPage?pageKey=scarlet&partner=scarlet https://covidtesting.scarlethealth.com/scarlet/ccrz__CCPage?... To clarify, it is not my intent to advertise for my current day-job/employer...but they do actually provide what OP asked for. Good luck! EDIT: @0xbadcafebee Sorry, I should have also added that the Scarlet service and associated tests are (likely) *NOT* free...so either you would have to pay out of pocket, or have health care (hope) to cover cost.
at_a_remove 5y ago
I will probably make use of this, even if I do have a stockpile of tests. Why a stockpile? My mother, whom I take care of and live with, has COPD. Despite being vaxxed and boosted, I worry about her contracting it. It would be incredibly easy for me to pass Omicron to her even if I was avoiding being in the same room with her, so I have developed a plan. Essentially, I have a "bug out bag" in a storage unit, along with entertainment and other ways to keep me occupied. Should I come down with COVID, I am going to go to a motel (not a hotel, a motel, which circulates the air to the outside) and simply hide there, not letting the maids change anything, until the fever breaks. Five days after the fever is gone, I start using tests until I am "clear" on several consecutive tests (swabbed throat and nose). I found a grocery store which delivers food to be left outside of the door, I plan on asking them about motel deliveries (unusual I know). At checkout time, I hose everything down with Lysol and pay for an extra day in the room, tell them not to let the maids in. Anyway, I figure this prevents me from exposing people. I cannot figure out anything better that isn't "living in the National parks, catching rabbits and shivering in the cold" hermitage. Anyway, this is going to take a stack of tests to go through. I don't feel great about it, like I am hoarding, but I don't know what else can be done.
- djrogers 5y ago
  How do you plan on knowing you have COVID if you're hoarding (and this not using) the tests? The majority of cases are asymptomatic...
  - at_a_remove 5y ago
    I will likely be symptomatic. I tend to have a really overblown immune response to vaccines, infections, and so on. I will get a 104F fever for a simple cold and typically go from "hrm, my throat is a little scratchy" to "cook an egg on my forehead" in the space of three hours. I will then blow through three or four tests. The bigger hoard is for coming out of COVID.
mads 5y ago
Are those tests hard to come by in the US? They sell those tests everywhere here where I am in Scandinavia in supermarkets and on gas stations. They are something like $5.
- jm_l 5y ago
  For most of the pandemic in the US it's been about that easy, but right now specifically it's very challenging to get tests because of the Omicron surge
  - merlincorey 5y ago
    Pharmacies near me have been sold out of the tests for weeks, and I would imagine it is similar situation throughout much of the United States.
  - cameldrv 5y ago
    No one wants to say this, but presumably the government purchasing 1 billion tests for this program reduced the retail supply a lot.
- ryanSrich 5y ago
  Very difficult from my experience. 39 drug stores within a 50 mile radius of me were sold out. Had to buy a 2 pack online for $49.
- ghaff 5y ago
  I'm told that they're quite hard to find and pricing is something like $50 for two.
  - neogodless 5y ago
    Whoa. I bought two for $15 from Walmart several times. They've raised the price to $20 now. Usually $23 or so for a 2-pack at CVS.
- 1123581321 5y ago
  Very easy to get until recently. However, much of the public communication about testing focused on PCR test centers. It seems like demand for home antigen was driven by a combination of omicron and public awareness of these tests.
varispeed 5y ago
From my anecdotal experience these tests are no better than guessing. Plenty of people around me got sick and thought they have cold. Testing every day always negative. One person got considerably worse and had to go to hospital, rapid test still negative at hospital. The PCR however came positive. Now, because the hospital gets paid extra for treatment of Covid patients, we still don't know if that person really had Covid and hospital just faked the result to collect money. Apart from that one person, everyone got better after a couple of days. The unlucky person needed few more days but is fine as well now. Hospital discharged him and said to come back if he gets considerably worse and was told to take acetaminophen. Total joke.
- adamrezich 5y ago
  a friend who lives in Seattle visited over the holidays and then spent Christmas with his family in Minneapolis. everyone in the family tested every single day and suddenly almost everyone went from negative to positive... but only a couple had the mildest symptoms possible, the rest were entirely without symptoms. nobody got even as sick as I did the last time I caught a cold a few months ago! nevertheless my friend said they "all got covid," which is hard to square with seeing my multiple-comorbidities-having mother be the sickest she's been in the thirty years I've been alive, from having covid for ten miserable days straight back in 2020. obviously this is going to be an unpopular opinion but the cynic in me can't help but think that controlling the supply chain of tests (going from them being available everywhere to suddenly in-demand and available nowhere to now suddenly easy to obtain again) is being used as a means of controlling the current number of "cases" reported, making the pandemic seem like it's still ongoing and deadly and terrible when it's kind of pretty much over in reality, and has been for awhile now, at least out here (maybe major population centers are different, I have no idea).
  - zucked 5y ago
    I tested positive over the Christmas break via PCR with basically zero noticeable symptoms (I had a headache and a runny nose for half a day.) I only got tested out of a sense of due diligence for upcoming family visits. I suspect that numbers in this wave are being VASTLY underreported not through any malfeasance, but by the fact that omicron has already run through a huge swath of the population more or less asymptomatically.
Miner49er 5y ago
Apparently my address is marked as a business, despite specifying an apartment number like "Apt. 2". So I can't order the tests. Considering how many people are likely to have problems, I'm skeptical I'll ever receive these, but I put in a support request anyway. I'm curious if this will be a problem with everyone that has an apartment? Or anyone who's residential address is shared with a business? If so, a lot of people won't be able to receive these tests.
- cmckn 5y ago
  I entered just my apartment number in that field no "apt", etc. Worked fine. You can always go the insurance route and get 8 tests/months. Best of luck!
  - Miner49er 5y ago
    Just tried that, didn't work either. Thanks, though.
  - ghostly_s 5y ago
    > You can always go the insurance route and get 8 tests/months. Huh? How?
    - djrogers 5y ago
      Varies by provider, but it's a new mandatory coverage item. My provider has a top of page callout on their homage about it...
    - cmckn 5y ago
      For example, Premera had a banner on the homepage sending you here: https://www.premera.com/documents/058636.pdf https://www.premera.com/documents/058636.pdf It's a reimbursement system, and obviously only applies to people with insurance; so it has its downsides. I filed a claim and it was easier than expected. This fairly large caveat is worth noting: > To be eligible for reimbursement, the following must apply...The tests are being used when a person has COVID symptoms or has had direct exposure, and not for school, work, travel, or attending events This went into effect on January 15, so only applies to tests purchased then or later.
rahimnathwani 5y ago
For comparison: In the UK (which has lower per capita healthcare spending than the US), you can pick up 7 or 14 tests from your local library or local pharmacy, without any appointment, pre-booking or ID. Just go here and enter your postcode: https://maps.test-and-trace.nhs.uk/ https://maps.test-and-trace.nhs.uk/
- xur17 5y ago
  My local libraries did that, they just couldn't keep them instock.
  - rahimnathwani 5y ago
    AFAIK there was a week around Christmas when the whole country was low on stock, but the situation improved rapidly after that. What's the situation now?
    - adhesive_wombat 5y ago
      No issues, you can just go online and order a free box of 7 tests every 24 hours and they'll be delivered, also for free. You don't even need an account: all you need is an email to receive a verification link.
  - maccard 5y ago
    I live in Edinburgh and there was a _really_ small window (between christmas and new year) where they were hard to get, I had to visit 3 pharmacies. Other than that they've been available every time me or anyone I know has wanted one.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- kcb 5y ago
  We've also got programs at the State and Local levels.
ryanSrich 5y ago
Strange. I filled out all my info but says tests for my address have already been ordered. Only other person that lives with me is my wife and she didn’t even know this existed.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
ashton314 5y ago
Wow… I run uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, Firefox Tracking Prevention, Little Snitch, and a pi-hole, and I only had to allow one domain on LS for this to work. That's a better experience than like 99% of the internet for me most of the time.
- xanaxagoras 5y ago
  I had to get off my VPN for the page to load which is fairly uncommon for me. But no problems from pi hole or ad blocker.
gunapologist99 5y ago
It appears that omicron almost always returns false negatives with the rapid antigen tests for mild cases. Since omicron is the vast majority of cases in the wild, and nearly all cases are mild (and the ones that aren't are probably going to get a PCR test anyway), rapid tests are practically next to useless now.
- shepherdjerred 5y ago
  According to early data, sure, but Omicron is still too new for any real studies to have been completed. An at home test is better than nothing.
  - djrogers 5y ago
    > An at home test is better than nothing. Is it? If there's a significant false negative rate, that will mislead people who may otherwise isolate/quarantine based on symptoms. If I feel kinda sick but test negative and need milk, I'm probably going to the store. Same with taking flight that I can't afford to reschedule, or a Dr. office visit, etc etc.
- adrianmonk 5y ago
  A valid point to raise, but things may not be that bad. The Washington Post has an article (https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/01/17/rapid-coronavirus-tests-accuracy-omicron/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/01/17/rapid-coron...) about this. Three key points from the article: (1) Rapid tests probably do have a harder time detecting omicron. (2) Two new rapid tests (from Roche, Siemens), granted EUA in December, "happen" to work "really well" against omicron. (3) Some of the tests the government will distribute are Roche tests. Another recent article (https://www.medtechdive.com/news/biden-administration-buy-500m-more-covid-tests/617183/ https://www.medtechdive.com/news/biden-administration-buy-50...) says the government has contracted with Abbott, iHealth, and Roche for its first 380 million test kits. So in that first 380 million, 1 out of 3 is already good for omicron. Hopefully as they work toward more contracts for the remainder of the 1 billion tests, the government will try to take omicron into account.
newman8r 5y ago
limit 4 per address. I wonder if you put different unit numbers on the addresses (like 'apartment a" 'apartment b') it would let you order more. I'm not saying anyone should try that, but I'm curious if that would work.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
nimbius 5y ago
somewhat related but for those outside the US, the governments candor with the postal service is nothing short of schizophrenia. for the past 40 some years theyve worked to basically bankrupt the entire service under some misplaced neoliberal economic imperative that somehow private industry will delight in delivering an ikea catalogue to the furthest foetid reaches of alaskan frozen tundra, and that somehow the postal service as it exists currently is wrong and bad for not turning a 15% profit year over year, every year, until the end of years. the last US president famously worked to remove and destroy postal sorting machines and even outright blocked funding entirely for the organization which singlehandedly created a crisis that still endures in 2022. now somehow the governments forgotten its holy crusade against grandmas crypto puzzles and uncle ed's mail order cigars and decided screw it, they provide not only the worst service in the history of government services but surprise, now they provide a critical lynchpin of healthcare designed to detect and identify a global pandemic thats killed millions. the irony is that somehow im sure a bureaucrat will champion this as an innovation, when for the past forever most americans have ordered cheap prescription drugs through the post from Canada and Mexico to treat a cornucopia of other diseases their healthcare system cant seem to without bankrupting them.
- evan_ 5y ago
  The people who are trying to destroy the post office are not the same people using it to deliver tests. Those folks are not in favor of using it to deliver tests. Hope this helps
tehjoker 5y ago
I'm so happy this is a real thing, but I'm also laughing that we only get this because people made fun of Jen Psaki.
crate_barre 5y ago
This is about two years too late. If you are sick, you have Covid. Don’t go to the hospital or stand in line for test unless you are very sick. Common sense goes a long a way.
- adamrezich 5y ago
  > If you are sick, you have Covid. please explain how this statement could possibly be true—what happened to every other illness? like the cold I had last month for example.
  - crate_barre 5y ago
    True is irrelevant. Common sense requires some level of acting ‘as if’. Act as if you have a cold. I don’t go around sneezing on people with a cold. I don’t waltz into the office and touch everything with a cold. I rest, eat some soup. Act as if. Now, if I had the cold and it felt like no other cold I ever had, then I may go to the doctor (before I consider the hospital). Things I won’t do if I suspect if I have the cold: 1. Order an online test to see if I have the cold.
- djrogers 5y ago
  > If you are sick, you have Covid In the past 2 months, at least 3 non-covid illnesses have torn through my family (flu and cold, all verified as non-COVID with multiple tests, both antigen and PCR). If we start treating every case of the sniffles like COVID, we're going to be in perpetual shutdowns...
  - crate_barre 5y ago
    The opposite. We have a lot of information that says Covid is flu-like for most of us. If you just assume it’s covid, and do what we all do with the flu (take sick days, eat soup, rest, try to stay away from people), that would be the common sense thing to do. Things that are not common sense anymore: 1. Order an online test 2. Stand in line at a clinic for a test 3. Goto the hospital ^ Most of us don’t do that when we get the cold.
lvl100 5y ago
USPS, despite seemingly negative public perception, has some very cool tech features. My favorite is informed delivery.
lgats 5y ago
You can see how many users currently viewing this usps page at https://analytics.usa.gov/ https://analytics.usa.gov/
danso 5y ago
According to the real time analytics [0], as of 1PM (central time), there are more visitors to COVIDtests.gov (754,000) than to all other federal government websites combined (1.33 million) [0] https://analytics.usa.gov https://analytics.usa.gov
- lima 5y ago
  And it's up and running! Nice job, USDS.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
zxcvbn4038 5y ago
And sell them on eBay. That is the next step, correct?
bigyellow 5y ago
- ghaff 5y ago
  It's cheap. And to get a test or four into the hands of (almost) anyone who wants one without red tape seems like a pretty good strategy at the moment even if it's probably not as useful as some people think.
dudus 5y ago
I got a cuehealth [1] molecular test kit from my employer. I've been using it for family and friends we interact with and has detected 1 positive so far, confirmed by PCR. I'm told they are equivalent to PCR but I'm not sure if that holds true. It has been a relief being able to test myself and family anytime from home. But I doubt I'd pay for it if it wasn't employer sponsored. It's pretty pricy. But I can see this as something you can share with a small community. There's also detect [2] that is much more reasonably priced, but seems to be sold out since I heard about them. [1] https://www.cuehealth.com/products/how-cue-detects-covid-19/ https://www.cuehealth.com/products/how-cue-detects-covid-19/ [2] https://detect.com/products/starter-kit https://detect.com/products/starter-kit
- stingrae 5y ago
  They are nice, but also very expensive (~$50/test) compared to the antigen tests (~$7/test)
m1117 5y ago
No validation whatsoever. Smells like abuse.
wonderwonder 5y ago
At this point I don't even see the reason to test for most (exceptions apply). My kid got a very low grade fever and we kept him home and got him a covid test. He tested negative but of course we kept him home due to the fever. Next day his school called and said he has to isolate because a kid at his table tested positive. He had to isolate for 5 days or until he got a negative test. We already had a negative test so technically we could send him back to school. Obviously we didn't because he likely had covid even though he tested neg. (no other real symptoms except the fever). We waited for the fever to go away and sent him back on day 5. No one else in the family got any symptoms so none of us tested. At this point it just seems to make sense that if you have symptoms to do the right thing and stay home from work or school until the symptoms pass, the test really has no bearing since they are so unreliable. Just treat it like the flu, if you have flu like symptoms you should stay home. If this thing spreads as effectively as its portrayed then we will all likely get it or have had it and not realized. I have been in large crowds several times unmasked now and not gotten any symptoms. Optimally I already had it and just never noticed which is pretty much the perfect scenario. I am vaxxed but my kids are not, still debating getting them vaccinated at this point.
tamaharbor 5y ago
If you know you have covid, what exactly do you do differently than with a cold or flu?
giardini 5y ago
Last week my pharmacy became inaccessible b/c they offered free covid testing. Lines were out the door! Luckily four days later the pharmacy ran out of tests, normal capitalism was restored and I could pick up my prescription. I see no utility in arbitrary testing. It burdens urgent care clinics and pharmacies; normal business ceases completely until the testing stops. If you're ill, stay home and/or call a doctor. If you're desperately ill, call 911 or go to a hospital. If you're OK then stay away from crowds, including covid testing sites. Asking USPS to distribute/collect covid tests will slow USPS delivery further. The USPS had recently announced a slowdown in delivery anyway. This looks like a politician's way to damage the USPS or its reputation.
tantalor 5y ago
Strange how this topic got buried on HN pretty quick. Currently it is #64, and here are its neighbors: 63. 4 points 41 minutes ago 2 comments 64. 232 points 2 hours ago 216 comments 65. 134 points 14 hours ago 285 comments
xkbarkar 5y ago
These things do a wonderful job of adding to the garbage pile but are pretty much worthless for anything else. Our poor poor planet.
farzher 5y ago
wow they can just do this for free? imagine if the government did something useful with our tax dollars instead
amriksohata 5y ago
The UK have had this for over 6 months. Why is the US so far behind?
nunez 5y ago
Thanks, USDS!
giardini 5y ago
This is merely "Bread and circuses": https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/bread+and+circuses https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/bread+and+circuses

252 points by mattl 5y ago

USPS infrastructure has a long-standing role in civil defense. https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-history/postal-service-role-in-civil-defense.pdf https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-history/postal-serv...

RspecMAuthortah 5y ago
Yeah and helping us defeat who he shan't be named in the 2020 election.

fotta 5y ago

Ordering is super easy. I'm glad they're using USPS's existing infrastructure so we don't get a healthcare.gov 2.0. We'll see how actual shipping goes.

dannyr 5y ago
The 2.0 version of healthcare.gov is actually pretty good. My bet is that it's probably using the same infrastructure and is built by the US Digital Service (https://www.usds.gov/ https://www.usds.gov/) and/or 18F (https://18f.gsa.gov/ https://18f.gsa.gov/)
- fotta 5y ago
  yeah I meant healthcare.gov 1.0 round 2

thebigman433 5y ago

Cant have them sent to college addresses, which really sucks. College students are probably some of the ones that should have it most, especially since testing at a lot of campuses is incredibly lackluster. Really hope they can whitelist university owned addresses

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
morpheuskafka 5y ago
Universities are kind of weird in the way USPS treats them. They won't sort the mail to dormitories by address like they would for an apartment building; instead they make the university do it. So part of the issue may be that the system is not coded to track each dorm room as an individual delivery point so they can't give each person an individual order limit even if they marked the addresses as residential.
- brimble 5y ago
  Probably because dorm rooms change occupants at a much higher rate than apartments.
  - paxys 5y ago
    What does that have to do with anything?
    - brimble 5y ago
      It means a much higher volume of change-of-address requests and mis-delivered mail.
- thebigman433 5y ago
  Yea all of our apartments/graduate complexes are listed under custom street addresses. USPS does deliver to individual buildings here, but only to the front desk. The error code on the site says its listed as a business address. Pretty unfortunate
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
thebean11 5y ago
Why not? Does the system think the dorms aren't residential addresses?

danso 5y ago

I was definitely worried for the US Digital Services team when I heard President Biden promise a website that would within a few weeks handle test orders for millions of households. But using USPS infrastructure was definitely the obvious and right solution, considering how many critical and secure online services USPS.com already handles, like change of address and informed delivery (i.e. scans of physical mail emailed to you daily)

KennyBlanken 5y ago
Informed delivery is just them leveraging the scanning and storing of the front and back of every piece of mail shipped in the US which they've been doing for over a decade and totally isn't creepy as hell...but yes. Singing up for this was amazingly easy. I think it took me under a minute to fill in and submit. Instant page load and form submission processing. No captcha checks. No weird javascript address validators (half of them think my address is malformed). No needlessly "cute" page design/graphics. No problems with any of the slew of privacy and ad-blocking tools I have installed. Filled in my address and email, clicked submit, done. Seconds later, I had an email from them confirming it. This is proof that government can work just fine. Guarantee that if this had been a private contracted thing we would have ended up with some monstrosity of browser-choking javascript, needlessly cutesy page design, etc. Can we please bring this sort of simplicity and efficiency to paying income tax / calculating withholdings and W4s? Or, FFS, everything the IRS does? And how about a national ID system, please? We already have nearly 1% of the US population in such a system: the DoD's Common Access Card. Lessons learned from that could easily be applied to a national digital/physical ID card. The crap I (and especially my parents) had to go through to prove to my DMV that we were honest-to-god citizen and could have a RealID drivers license...which isn't actually useful for anything except getting on a plane or into a federal building...was insane. And embarrassing, for a "first world" nation in this day and age.
- evan_ 5y ago
  > No weird javascript address validators (half of them think my address is malformed). There's really no excuse for those- The USPS provides an address validation API that's easy to use, accurate, and free: https://www.usps.com/business/web-tools-apis/ https://www.usps.com/business/web-tools-apis/ When you're literally the final word on what is, and is not, a deliverable address, you don't need a regex. You can just do a database lookup. Presumably they're also leveraging the same address matching technology they use with real mail in that API as well.

buscoquadnary 5y ago

So I had a sister that got sick, she took a test, not COVID. She was still sick a little while later, another test another negative. She finally took a third one and that returned a COVID positive test. In the meantime my children have been sick for a little while, and we got one of them tested and it was negative; however right before they got sick we had interaction with someone who had a positive COVID test shortly thereafter. I am starting to wonder at the efficacy of the tests and is it that they just can't catch Omnicron as well? Are my kids really just sick with some other random thing despite dozens of people in our social circle getting COVID? I'm just wondering at this point if there is a reason for the mass testing, because it doesn't really let you know anything except whether or not you have COVID and you'll get better or get worse. I can understand in hospitals or something like that, but in the general population I am failing to understand as it seems Omicron is incredibly virulent, and you can spread before you have symptoms, so what is the end game with the mass testing?

azinman2 5y ago
People like myself would act very differently to a cold than COVID. It changes also needs to isolate/quarantine, and helps us get a handle on asymptomatic cases who otherwise would go around continuing to infect others.
- djrogers 5y ago
  > helps us get a handle on asymptomatic cases This won't help us get a handle on asymptomatic cases - to do that, we'd have to be able to test everyone on a frequent and consistent basis. This program doesn't even cover one test for everyone in my house, let alone weekly or more frequent testing. And aside from this, I have to spend hours looking for any available rapid tests to buy around here, and if/when I have some, I can't afford to use them on randomized or even weekly testing.
thescriptkiddie 5y ago
The rapid tests have a very high false negative rate regardless of variant, but a very low false positive rate. They should not be trusted as proof that you do not have COVID, only as proof that you do have it.

paulsmith 5y ago

In spite of appearances, I'm not sure if they went with existing USPS web resources, at least on the frontend. Looks like custom build using a very typical modern managed AWS services stack. In any case, interesting new state of the art for government, compared, let's say, to the HealthCare.gov launch. At first I thought it would just be a new SKU in the USPS.com website. But it looks like they rolled something custom, using CloudFront, S3, Route53 (two new domain names, special.usps.com and special-api.usps.com for POSTing the order form JSON to), API Gateway (and probably Lambda and DynamoDB): https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQP9G1cWiICGOoBAjrUm6XGPK7ERwl2TrpxnWpJlkuAVdnsP2tkD9q77ZxFPvkDhtOby-cDjr9cfbPe/pub https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQP9G1cWiICGOoBA...

danso 5y ago
Not sure if USDS (U.S. Digital Services) team worked specifically on the covidtests.gov rollout, but USDS was largely borne out of the dev effort that rescued Healthcare.gov: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/07/the-secret-startup-saved-healthcare-gov-the-worst-website-in-america/397784/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/07/the-s... > The spectacular failure of Healthcare.gov at launch led to the creation of what came to be known as the Tech Surge, a group of Silicon Valley developers who rescued the website from disorganized contractors and bureaucratic mismanagement. That group gave rise to the U.S. Digital Service and, to a lesser extent, 18F, two government agencies now working to improve the state of federal technology
- buscoquadnary 5y ago
  As for 18F for all else wondering it stands for where there office is located on 18th and F street. That being said I think they should really really should maybe give some thought to renaming their group.
- llimllib 5y ago
  > Not sure if USDS (U.S. Digital Services) team worked specifically on the covidtests.gov rollout They did[1]: > The United States Digital Service, which grew out of the effort to rescue healthcare.gov, is also assisting with the launch. "We have the best tech teams across our administration working hard to make this a success, and we think we're well positioned to do that," [1]: https://www.protocol.com/bulletins/white-house-covid-test-website https://www.protocol.com/bulletins/white-house-covid-test-we...

mattl 5y ago

I'm back at work today after being off for a week with COVID-19, and I'm lucky that I got some tests at CVS when I could.

ChicagoBoy11 5y ago

Man, I was so bummed I didn't have to make an account and everything /s I mean, for what it's worth, this gets high marks from me for ease of use and seems to be consistent with just about every advice you see surface here about getting your users through an ordering funnel. Of course the fact that the cost is 0 here makes it a simpler problem for them, but given that it is a gov't project I could have envisioned a lot, lot worse.

paxys 5y ago
What works in their favor is they have a verified database of every address in the US. For this purpose that is, effectively, your account.
- atwebb 5y ago
  Would it matter? The address has to be valid and once input it is the unique key. I didn't see any address validation on my end (which is also an option for other forms).
  - paxys 5y ago
    The worst case is you input someone else's address (whether by mistake or on purpose) and...they end up getting free COVID tests. Not really something worth validating. USPS does have ways to validate your address, for example when you set up mail forwarding or the daily digest thing.
    - joezydeco 5y ago
      They also offer free access to this validator: https://www.usps.com/business/web-tools-apis/address-information-api.pdf https://www.usps.com/business/web-tools-apis/address-informa...
- flax 5y ago
  And it's really nice that they're actually using the physical address for this instead of the given email address. Especially since some imbecile put my email address in when ordering her tests. I was concerned that I would not be able to order my own since my email was already used. But no, I was able to. USPS gets points for practicality and execution, but is yet another service that performs zero email address verification and ends up with idiots that don't know their own email sending me their info.

adenner 5y ago

This is on top of the 8 Home Rapid Antigen Tests per person per month that private insurance plans are now required to cover. (Check with your insurance provider for details as the roll out has been a bit chaotic) (Also not going into the issues of obtainability, fairness of paying out of pocket and waiting for reimbursement, Medicare and Medicaid not being included, etc.)

molbioguy 5y ago

-- deleted -- wrote without sufficiently thinking. Something is certainly better than nothing, though I think this will come up short for a lot of families since it's limited to one residential address.

azinman2 5y ago
It’s 4 free tests that are hard to get right now. How is that useless?
- djrogers 5y ago
  A one time grant of 4 tests for a family of 5 is better than a kick in the shins, but it's not really going to make much of a dent in the frequency that my family can test. Also there was a lot of talk about getting these out for lower income families - guess what, they're more likely to have multiple generations living under one roof, so limiting this to 4 per house is even worse for them.
  - adamrezich 5y ago
    why do people need to test all the time these days? what's the point? I understand having a couple tests on hand, maybe even one or two for every person in the household, if you're really paranoid and you want to see if the symptoms someone has started having might be related to covid instead of just being a cold or whatever, and you want to do it at home instead of rushing to urgent care to check. but what's gained from testing with "frequency"—especially now that it sure seems like the bulk of the deadliness of the pandemic is pretty much done with at this point?
    - djrogers 5y ago
      > why do people need to test all the time these days? We don't! I've had to use a bunch of these lately, as you are supposed to test twice if you have symptoms and test negative the first time (yeah - read the instructions!), and it's cold&flu season. My entire family has had cold and flu symptoms multiple times in the past 2 months - that's 10 tests each time if we're following protocol.

jjoe 5y ago

UPS is effectively acting like a CDN here. Stocking up on COVID tests right at the edge (your local USPS distribution store) and shipping it off immediately when ordered. Hmmm interesting...

buscoquadnary 5y ago
I know it sounds dumb but I have always been super interested in Supply Chain and logistics networks and digital networks because of the fascinating graphs they produce and how complex and fascinating they are. I think your analogy is apt.
paxys 5y ago
USPS* is acting like a retailer and following patterns of distribution and logistics that have been in place for centuries. Not everything is about software..
- ncallaway 5y ago
  USPS can be acting like many things. If someone is more familiar with a CDN that the traditional retail logistics and distributions infrastructure, then it would probably be more helpful of them to think of the situation using that analogy. USPS is acting both like a retailer, and as a sort of an analogue to a CDN. Both can be helpful models in understanding how this works.

YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo 5y ago

Is it really that hard to get tests in the US? They are everywhere in abundance in Germany, France and the Netherlands.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
djrogers 5y ago
A month ago you could pick up as many as you wanted at almost any drug store, but now they're sold out everywhere, and disappear off the shelves as fast as they appear. It's the new toilet paper...

maxbaines 5y ago

In the UK Whilst ordered through the gov.uk site, which is super easy and clear (thanks to government digital services https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/government-digital-service https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/government-digit...) the distribution of lateral flow is via Royal Mail and the PCR tests is or was mid 2020 delivered by Amazon

alibarber 5y ago
When I was visiting in December for a month I literally said ‘wow’ when a pack of 7 dropped through my letterbox less than a day after ordering. I have to admit that I do think they’re on the right track with this - it’s certainly better than some other European countries that were initially getting a lot of praise at the start of the pandemic.
- maxbaines 5y ago
  Yes and great, I agree, the UK press have reported shortages of lateral flow tests recently but only this week I had exactly the same experience as you.

tiahura 5y ago

What's the point? If you have a fever and are coughing and sneezing - stay home! If your fever is high or you are having trouble breathing - see a doctor. If someone you spend a lot of time around is sick, wear a good mask and avoid people as much as possible for a few days to make sure you don't have it too. Or, are we supposed to be testing asymptomatic people? If so, then we're going to need a lot more than four.

lotsofpulp 5y ago
>What's the point? Political points, and/or plausible deniability for leaders to be able to say they did something.
- hatware 5y ago
  Ding ding ding ding ding! What a healthy use of tax-payer funds. To create a show for all of us. Give them bread and circuses, or something.
  - thebigman433 5y ago
    It is still legitimately useful. Positive test means you can get sick leave at a lot of places, even if you dont have any sick time left. This is a tiny amount of money and for a generally good thing.
kirykl 5y ago
Historically tests have been used to help healthcare providers differentiate to prescribe targeted most effective therapeutics
- bigyellow 5y ago
  And historically vaccines used to provide immunity against disease.
evan_ 5y ago
Many people can't just stay home from work unless they have an actual positive test. For a lot of workplaces a home test isn't enough, you need a PCR test, but this can ideally help you know if you need to go to the trouble.

0xbadcafebee 5y ago

Anyone know if there's an easy way to get PCR tests in the US? I've got the at-home antigen kit, but if I actually think I have COVID, I want it registered somehow so the state counts me in their test numbers. And I want to actually know if I've had it and not get a false negative.

paxys 5y ago
If you do a lab PCR test the results will make their way to the official state data set. Ways to get one: - Go through your doctor or insurance provider - Go to a private clinic - See if your city or state has partnered with a testing company
mxuribe 5y ago
My current employer actually mobilizes phlebotomists to come to your home/office for what you need (like Uber for diagnostic testing...including covid tests)...of course for zip codes that are currently covered: https://covidtesting.scarlethealth.com/scarlet/ccrz__CCPage?pageKey=scarlet&partner=scarlet https://covidtesting.scarlethealth.com/scarlet/ccrz__CCPage?... To clarify, it is not my intent to advertise for my current day-job/employer...but they do actually provide what OP asked for. Good luck! EDIT: @0xbadcafebee Sorry, I should have also added that the Scarlet service and associated tests are (likely) *NOT* free...so either you would have to pay out of pocket, or have health care (hope) to cover cost.

at_a_remove 5y ago

I will probably make use of this, even if I do have a stockpile of tests. Why a stockpile? My mother, whom I take care of and live with, has COPD. Despite being vaxxed and boosted, I worry about her contracting it. It would be incredibly easy for me to pass Omicron to her even if I was avoiding being in the same room with her, so I have developed a plan. Essentially, I have a "bug out bag" in a storage unit, along with entertainment and other ways to keep me occupied. Should I come down with COVID, I am going to go to a motel (not a hotel, a motel, which circulates the air to the outside) and simply hide there, not letting the maids change anything, until the fever breaks. Five days after the fever is gone, I start using tests until I am "clear" on several consecutive tests (swabbed throat and nose). I found a grocery store which delivers food to be left outside of the door, I plan on asking them about motel deliveries (unusual I know). At checkout time, I hose everything down with Lysol and pay for an extra day in the room, tell them not to let the maids in. Anyway, I figure this prevents me from exposing people. I cannot figure out anything better that isn't "living in the National parks, catching rabbits and shivering in the cold" hermitage. Anyway, this is going to take a stack of tests to go through. I don't feel great about it, like I am hoarding, but I don't know what else can be done.

djrogers 5y ago
How do you plan on knowing you have COVID if you're hoarding (and this not using) the tests? The majority of cases are asymptomatic...
- at_a_remove 5y ago
  I will likely be symptomatic. I tend to have a really overblown immune response to vaccines, infections, and so on. I will get a 104F fever for a simple cold and typically go from "hrm, my throat is a little scratchy" to "cook an egg on my forehead" in the space of three hours. I will then blow through three or four tests. The bigger hoard is for coming out of COVID.

mads 5y ago

Are those tests hard to come by in the US? They sell those tests everywhere here where I am in Scandinavia in supermarkets and on gas stations. They are something like $5.

jm_l 5y ago
For most of the pandemic in the US it's been about that easy, but right now specifically it's very challenging to get tests because of the Omicron surge
- merlincorey 5y ago
  Pharmacies near me have been sold out of the tests for weeks, and I would imagine it is similar situation throughout much of the United States.
- cameldrv 5y ago
  No one wants to say this, but presumably the government purchasing 1 billion tests for this program reduced the retail supply a lot.
ryanSrich 5y ago
Very difficult from my experience. 39 drug stores within a 50 mile radius of me were sold out. Had to buy a 2 pack online for $49.
ghaff 5y ago
I'm told that they're quite hard to find and pricing is something like $50 for two.
- neogodless 5y ago
  Whoa. I bought two for $15 from Walmart several times. They've raised the price to $20 now. Usually $23 or so for a 2-pack at CVS.
1123581321 5y ago
Very easy to get until recently. However, much of the public communication about testing focused on PCR test centers. It seems like demand for home antigen was driven by a combination of omicron and public awareness of these tests.

varispeed 5y ago

From my anecdotal experience these tests are no better than guessing. Plenty of people around me got sick and thought they have cold. Testing every day always negative. One person got considerably worse and had to go to hospital, rapid test still negative at hospital. The PCR however came positive. Now, because the hospital gets paid extra for treatment of Covid patients, we still don't know if that person really had Covid and hospital just faked the result to collect money. Apart from that one person, everyone got better after a couple of days. The unlucky person needed few more days but is fine as well now. Hospital discharged him and said to come back if he gets considerably worse and was told to take acetaminophen. Total joke.

adamrezich 5y ago
a friend who lives in Seattle visited over the holidays and then spent Christmas with his family in Minneapolis. everyone in the family tested every single day and suddenly almost everyone went from negative to positive... but only a couple had the mildest symptoms possible, the rest were entirely without symptoms. nobody got even as sick as I did the last time I caught a cold a few months ago! nevertheless my friend said they "all got covid," which is hard to square with seeing my multiple-comorbidities-having mother be the sickest she's been in the thirty years I've been alive, from having covid for ten miserable days straight back in 2020. obviously this is going to be an unpopular opinion but the cynic in me can't help but think that controlling the supply chain of tests (going from them being available everywhere to suddenly in-demand and available nowhere to now suddenly easy to obtain again) is being used as a means of controlling the current number of "cases" reported, making the pandemic seem like it's still ongoing and deadly and terrible when it's kind of pretty much over in reality, and has been for awhile now, at least out here (maybe major population centers are different, I have no idea).
- zucked 5y ago
  I tested positive over the Christmas break via PCR with basically zero noticeable symptoms (I had a headache and a runny nose for half a day.) I only got tested out of a sense of due diligence for upcoming family visits. I suspect that numbers in this wave are being VASTLY underreported not through any malfeasance, but by the fact that omicron has already run through a huge swath of the population more or less asymptomatically.

Miner49er 5y ago

Apparently my address is marked as a business, despite specifying an apartment number like "Apt. 2". So I can't order the tests. Considering how many people are likely to have problems, I'm skeptical I'll ever receive these, but I put in a support request anyway. I'm curious if this will be a problem with everyone that has an apartment? Or anyone who's residential address is shared with a business? If so, a lot of people won't be able to receive these tests.

cmckn 5y ago
I entered just my apartment number in that field no "apt", etc. Worked fine. You can always go the insurance route and get 8 tests/months. Best of luck!
- Miner49er 5y ago
  Just tried that, didn't work either. Thanks, though.
- ghostly_s 5y ago
  > You can always go the insurance route and get 8 tests/months. Huh? How?
  - djrogers 5y ago
    Varies by provider, but it's a new mandatory coverage item. My provider has a top of page callout on their homage about it...
  - cmckn 5y ago
    For example, Premera had a banner on the homepage sending you here: https://www.premera.com/documents/058636.pdf https://www.premera.com/documents/058636.pdf It's a reimbursement system, and obviously only applies to people with insurance; so it has its downsides. I filed a claim and it was easier than expected. This fairly large caveat is worth noting: > To be eligible for reimbursement, the following must apply...The tests are being used when a person has COVID symptoms or has had direct exposure, and not for school, work, travel, or attending events This went into effect on January 15, so only applies to tests purchased then or later.

rahimnathwani 5y ago

For comparison: In the UK (which has lower per capita healthcare spending than the US), you can pick up 7 or 14 tests from your local library or local pharmacy, without any appointment, pre-booking or ID. Just go here and enter your postcode: https://maps.test-and-trace.nhs.uk/ https://maps.test-and-trace.nhs.uk/

xur17 5y ago
My local libraries did that, they just couldn't keep them instock.
- rahimnathwani 5y ago
  AFAIK there was a week around Christmas when the whole country was low on stock, but the situation improved rapidly after that. What's the situation now?
  - adhesive_wombat 5y ago
    No issues, you can just go online and order a free box of 7 tests every 24 hours and they'll be delivered, also for free. You don't even need an account: all you need is an email to receive a verification link.
- maccard 5y ago
  I live in Edinburgh and there was a _really_ small window (between christmas and new year) where they were hard to get, I had to visit 3 pharmacies. Other than that they've been available every time me or anyone I know has wanted one.
  - deleted 5y ago
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kcb 5y ago
We've also got programs at the State and Local levels.

ryanSrich 5y ago

Strange. I filled out all my info but says tests for my address have already been ordered. Only other person that lives with me is my wife and she didn’t even know this existed.

deleted 5y ago
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ashton314 5y ago

Wow… I run uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, Firefox Tracking Prevention, Little Snitch, and a pi-hole, and I only had to allow one domain on LS for this to work. That's a better experience than like 99% of the internet for me most of the time.

xanaxagoras 5y ago
I had to get off my VPN for the page to load which is fairly uncommon for me. But no problems from pi hole or ad blocker.

gunapologist99 5y ago

It appears that omicron almost always returns false negatives with the rapid antigen tests for mild cases. Since omicron is the vast majority of cases in the wild, and nearly all cases are mild (and the ones that aren't are probably going to get a PCR test anyway), rapid tests are practically next to useless now.

shepherdjerred 5y ago
According to early data, sure, but Omicron is still too new for any real studies to have been completed. An at home test is better than nothing.
- djrogers 5y ago
  > An at home test is better than nothing. Is it? If there's a significant false negative rate, that will mislead people who may otherwise isolate/quarantine based on symptoms. If I feel kinda sick but test negative and need milk, I'm probably going to the store. Same with taking flight that I can't afford to reschedule, or a Dr. office visit, etc etc.
adrianmonk 5y ago
A valid point to raise, but things may not be that bad. The Washington Post has an article (https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/01/17/rapid-coronavirus-tests-accuracy-omicron/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/01/17/rapid-coron...) about this. Three key points from the article: (1) Rapid tests probably do have a harder time detecting omicron. (2) Two new rapid tests (from Roche, Siemens), granted EUA in December, "happen" to work "really well" against omicron. (3) Some of the tests the government will distribute are Roche tests. Another recent article (https://www.medtechdive.com/news/biden-administration-buy-500m-more-covid-tests/617183/ https://www.medtechdive.com/news/biden-administration-buy-50...) says the government has contracted with Abbott, iHealth, and Roche for its first 380 million test kits. So in that first 380 million, 1 out of 3 is already good for omicron. Hopefully as they work toward more contracts for the remainder of the 1 billion tests, the government will try to take omicron into account.

newman8r 5y ago

limit 4 per address. I wonder if you put different unit numbers on the addresses (like 'apartment a" 'apartment b') it would let you order more. I'm not saying anyone should try that, but I'm curious if that would work.

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nimbius 5y ago

somewhat related but for those outside the US, the governments candor with the postal service is nothing short of schizophrenia. for the past 40 some years theyve worked to basically bankrupt the entire service under some misplaced neoliberal economic imperative that somehow private industry will delight in delivering an ikea catalogue to the furthest foetid reaches of alaskan frozen tundra, and that somehow the postal service as it exists currently is wrong and bad for not turning a 15% profit year over year, every year, until the end of years. the last US president famously worked to remove and destroy postal sorting machines and even outright blocked funding entirely for the organization which singlehandedly created a crisis that still endures in 2022. now somehow the governments forgotten its holy crusade against grandmas crypto puzzles and uncle ed's mail order cigars and decided screw it, they provide not only the worst service in the history of government services but surprise, now they provide a critical lynchpin of healthcare designed to detect and identify a global pandemic thats killed millions. the irony is that somehow im sure a bureaucrat will champion this as an innovation, when for the past forever most americans have ordered cheap prescription drugs through the post from Canada and Mexico to treat a cornucopia of other diseases their healthcare system cant seem to without bankrupting them.

evan_ 5y ago
The people who are trying to destroy the post office are not the same people using it to deliver tests. Those folks are not in favor of using it to deliver tests. Hope this helps

tehjoker 5y ago

I'm so happy this is a real thing, but I'm also laughing that we only get this because people made fun of Jen Psaki.

crate_barre 5y ago

This is about two years too late. If you are sick, you have Covid. Don’t go to the hospital or stand in line for test unless you are very sick. Common sense goes a long a way.

adamrezich 5y ago
> If you are sick, you have Covid. please explain how this statement could possibly be true—what happened to every other illness? like the cold I had last month for example.
- crate_barre 5y ago
  True is irrelevant. Common sense requires some level of acting ‘as if’. Act as if you have a cold. I don’t go around sneezing on people with a cold. I don’t waltz into the office and touch everything with a cold. I rest, eat some soup. Act as if. Now, if I had the cold and it felt like no other cold I ever had, then I may go to the doctor (before I consider the hospital). Things I won’t do if I suspect if I have the cold: 1. Order an online test to see if I have the cold.
djrogers 5y ago
> If you are sick, you have Covid In the past 2 months, at least 3 non-covid illnesses have torn through my family (flu and cold, all verified as non-COVID with multiple tests, both antigen and PCR). If we start treating every case of the sniffles like COVID, we're going to be in perpetual shutdowns...
- crate_barre 5y ago
  The opposite. We have a lot of information that says Covid is flu-like for most of us. If you just assume it’s covid, and do what we all do with the flu (take sick days, eat soup, rest, try to stay away from people), that would be the common sense thing to do. Things that are not common sense anymore: 1. Order an online test 2. Stand in line at a clinic for a test 3. Goto the hospital ^ Most of us don’t do that when we get the cold.

lvl100 5y ago

USPS, despite seemingly negative public perception, has some very cool tech features. My favorite is informed delivery.

lgats 5y ago

You can see how many users currently viewing this usps page at https://analytics.usa.gov/ https://analytics.usa.gov/

danso 5y ago

According to the real time analytics [0], as of 1PM (central time), there are more visitors to COVIDtests.gov (754,000) than to all other federal government websites combined (1.33 million) [0] https://analytics.usa.gov https://analytics.usa.gov

lima 5y ago
And it's up and running! Nice job, USDS.

deleted 5y ago

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zxcvbn4038 5y ago

And sell them on eBay. That is the next step, correct?

bigyellow 5y ago

ghaff 5y ago
It's cheap. And to get a test or four into the hands of (almost) anyone who wants one without red tape seems like a pretty good strategy at the moment even if it's probably not as useful as some people think.

dudus 5y ago

I got a cuehealth [1] molecular test kit from my employer. I've been using it for family and friends we interact with and has detected 1 positive so far, confirmed by PCR. I'm told they are equivalent to PCR but I'm not sure if that holds true. It has been a relief being able to test myself and family anytime from home. But I doubt I'd pay for it if it wasn't employer sponsored. It's pretty pricy. But I can see this as something you can share with a small community. There's also detect [2] that is much more reasonably priced, but seems to be sold out since I heard about them. [1] https://www.cuehealth.com/products/how-cue-detects-covid-19/ https://www.cuehealth.com/products/how-cue-detects-covid-19/ [2] https://detect.com/products/starter-kit https://detect.com/products/starter-kit

stingrae 5y ago
They are nice, but also very expensive (~$50/test) compared to the antigen tests (~$7/test)

m1117 5y ago

No validation whatsoever. Smells like abuse.

wonderwonder 5y ago

At this point I don't even see the reason to test for most (exceptions apply). My kid got a very low grade fever and we kept him home and got him a covid test. He tested negative but of course we kept him home due to the fever. Next day his school called and said he has to isolate because a kid at his table tested positive. He had to isolate for 5 days or until he got a negative test. We already had a negative test so technically we could send him back to school. Obviously we didn't because he likely had covid even though he tested neg. (no other real symptoms except the fever). We waited for the fever to go away and sent him back on day 5. No one else in the family got any symptoms so none of us tested. At this point it just seems to make sense that if you have symptoms to do the right thing and stay home from work or school until the symptoms pass, the test really has no bearing since they are so unreliable. Just treat it like the flu, if you have flu like symptoms you should stay home. If this thing spreads as effectively as its portrayed then we will all likely get it or have had it and not realized. I have been in large crowds several times unmasked now and not gotten any symptoms. Optimally I already had it and just never noticed which is pretty much the perfect scenario. I am vaxxed but my kids are not, still debating getting them vaccinated at this point.

tamaharbor 5y ago

If you know you have covid, what exactly do you do differently than with a cold or flu?

giardini 5y ago

Last week my pharmacy became inaccessible b/c they offered free covid testing. Lines were out the door! Luckily four days later the pharmacy ran out of tests, normal capitalism was restored and I could pick up my prescription. I see no utility in arbitrary testing. It burdens urgent care clinics and pharmacies; normal business ceases completely until the testing stops. If you're ill, stay home and/or call a doctor. If you're desperately ill, call 911 or go to a hospital. If you're OK then stay away from crowds, including covid testing sites. Asking USPS to distribute/collect covid tests will slow USPS delivery further. The USPS had recently announced a slowdown in delivery anyway. This looks like a politician's way to damage the USPS or its reputation.

tantalor 5y ago

Strange how this topic got buried on HN pretty quick. Currently it is #64, and here are its neighbors: 63. 4 points 41 minutes ago 2 comments 64. 232 points 2 hours ago 216 comments 65. 134 points 14 hours ago 285 comments

xkbarkar 5y ago

These things do a wonderful job of adding to the garbage pile but are pretty much worthless for anything else. Our poor poor planet.

farzher 5y ago

wow they can just do this for free? imagine if the government did something useful with our tax dollars instead

amriksohata 5y ago

The UK have had this for over 6 months. Why is the US so far behind?

nunez 5y ago

Thanks, USDS!

giardini 5y ago

This is merely "Bread and circuses": https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/bread+and+circuses https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/bread+and+circuses