What if you could test for COVID at home for $5?
Feb 25, 2021

What if you could test for COVID at home for $5?

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Other countries have wider access to cheap, easy, at-home COVID tests. Will more people in the U.S. see that soon? Plus, the state of unemployment claims in the U.S. after the winter storms last week. And, Biden's stamp on the United States Postal Service.

Segments From this episode

730,000 new jobless claims is still above anything we'd seen before the pandemic. But better is hopefully better.

“It certainly was good news, the biggest drop and the lowest level since the week of Thanksgiving,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton. “Of course, there’s something in common between the week of Thanksgiving and the most recent week. And that was, a lot of applications that usually get done didn’t get done last week.” The deep freeze in Texas and Oklahoma caused electricity outages and people literally couldn’t get applications in, Swonk said. She also noted there was a nice improvement in California.

$5 COVID test, DIY-style, may be on the way

Feb 25, 2021
Half-hour, at-home tests that you can do without a prescription are on the verge of going big.
They're known as rapid antigen tests. Right now there is no cheap, at-home version available in the United States without a prescription, but several applications are in the queue before the FDA. Pictured: A rapid antigen test in Spain.
Pablo Blazquez Dominguez/Getty Images

Music from the episode

The team

Victoria Craig Host, BBC
Stephen Ryan Senior Producer, BBC
Jonathan Frewin Producer, BBC
Daniel Shin Producer
Jay Siebold Technical Director
Brian Allison Engineer
Meredith Garretson Morbey Senior Producer
Erika Soderstrom Producer
Rose Conlon Producer
Alex Schroeder Producer