Trump Administration Changes Mind About Ending Free COVID Test Program

The Trump administration quickly reversed its decision to dispose of billions of dollars worth of free COVID tests.

The Donald Trump administration has had a change of heart about ending the government’s free COVID test program.

On Feb. 19, just 12 minutes before COVIDtests.gov was set to go offline, the White House announced plans to extend the government’s free COVID test program. This announcement came shortly after The Washington Post reported that officials were preparing to shut down the program and potentially dispose of tens of millions of unused tests valued at over half a billion dollars.

“With COVID-19 infections decreasing after a winter peak, we are in the process of regular discussions on closing this round of the COVID-19 test ordering program,” said Andrew Nixon, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). “At this point, the program is still open, and we will share additional updates as needed.”

Internal documents revealed that HHS officials were weighing the decision to either dispose of more than 160 million COVID tests stockpiled by the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR) or continue distributing them to U.S. households. According to Dawn O’Connell, an ASPR chief under the Biden administration, only a small fraction of the tests had expired, while tens of thousands were still being ordered daily.

“It’s expensive to stockpile these tests,” O’Connell said. “Destruction costs a significant amount of money, but hanging on to them costs a significant amount of money.”

Given the Trump administration’s firm stance against financial waste, discarding tests worth over half a billion dollars would contradict the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) efforts to curb excessive government spending. In his first days back in office, Trump revoked several of former President Joe Biden’s COVID-related executive orders, including one designed to expand the national testing strategy.

The decision sparked concerns among public health experts, who warned that eliminating the initiative could hinder efforts to manage flu season and future COVID surges.

Discarding the tests “feels like an act of self-destruction here. It’s going to be expensive. And it takes away a tool that the administration would want to use in the scenario that we get a highly immune-evasive variant,” said Dr. Ashish Jha, who led the White House COVID response from March 2022 to April 2023 under Biden and is now the dean of Brown University School of Public Health.

Although COVID cases have declined since the winter peak, experts emphasize that free testing remains essential for managing and preventing future outbreaks.

“Destroying an asset that was paid for by the American people, that doesn’t make any sense,” said Dr. Tom Inglesby, who was White House national coordinator for COVID testing under Biden and is now the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security at the Bloomberg School of Public Health.

In the event of a resurgence, “we need to be able to figure out who is sick, who is not sick, who needs medicine, who is, in fact, contagious, who may be someone who’s vulnerable,” Inglesby added. “These diagnostics really help you make really good decisions, help families make good decisions about how to stay healthy.”