If you want to stock up on your free, government-supplied COVID test kits, you’re going to need to stop by the website where people request them by Friday. September 2nd is the date when they will stop taking requests and shipping out the free kits. After that, you’ll be on the hook to buy them yourself if you so desire. The reasons the government is giving for shutting off the flow of free kits seem a bit on the sketchy side, however. They’re blaming it on decreasing supplies amid fears that there may be a surge in the fall and a lack of congressional funding to stockpile more of the kits. Really? (NBC News)

The government will end its giveaway of Covid-19 at-home tests on Sept. 2, the result of insufficient congressional funding, a senior official in the administration of President Joe Biden said Sunday.

A stockpile of the tests is getting depleted, and officials want to have enough on hand in the event of a fall surge, the source said.

The giveaway, which includes tests mailed at no cost to recipients who request them at Covidtests.gov, will cease Friday, according to an announcement on the site. That is, unless there’s a surprise round of funding from Congress, the source said.

I’m not expecting this to have too much of an impact around our house. I have still yet to be tested for COVID a single time. Maybe I never caught it. Maybe I caught it five times and just didn’t notice. My wife picked up a few test kits and stuck them in the medicine cabinet, but I never felt compelled to use them. And yes, this announcement from the White House doesn’t sit well with me.

Both of these excuses seem like weak tea, as I mentioned above. If the government’s supply of test kits is running low, that means that someone wasn’t keeping track of the inventory and ordering enough to keep up with demand. I’ll just give you all a moment to recover from the shock of hearing that somebody in the Biden administration took their eye off the ball.

The other part of the explanation tells us that the free kits may be once again available if Congress appropriates additional funds. But how does that make any sense? Since when did the White House start worrying about there not being enough money for anything? Money magically appears to provide endless shipments of high-grade weapon systems to Ukraine or to push the construction of wind farms or subsidized electric vehicles and nobody seems to bat an eye. But money for medical supplies is suddenly a bridge too far?

As usual, I suspect that there’s a different underlying message to be taken from this. (There always is with this administration.) People inside the White House have finally begun to come around to understanding that people are done with the pandemic, done with the constant precautions, done with Anthony Fauci, and pretty much just done with all of it. There are midterm elections coming up fast and they really don’t want to annoy the populace more than they already have.

If COVID was still as much of a threat to the general population as Fauci and his pals continue to insist, testing would be increasing, not decreasing. But the White House appears to be preparing to abandon the charade. And most of the media will dutifully go along with this strategy and simply move on to the next flavor of the week. Perhaps they’ll finally get around to warning the most vulnerable populations about monkeypox (or whatever its name is this week) and stop acting like the entire population is at risk.