Happy Nice Mall

When deciding what to buy for Secret Santa gift shopping, Amir Blumenfeld found something practical: a Covid-19 test kit at home. “Is there a better gift than peace?” Mr. Blumenfeld, the 38-year-old comedian, wrote a direct message on Twitter.

At the center of his joke was an urgent concern: Coronavirus cases once again Rising around the United States The delta variant gave rise to Omicron, a highly contagious form of the virus. The surge has fueled demand for Covid tests ahead of the Christmas holidays as families look for ways to pack safely.

There are some discouraged long lines of hours at local test sites to take polymerase chain reaction testsIts results, obtained in a laboratory, are considered the gold standard for detecting the virus. Others rushed to buy rapid tests at home, out of stock in pharmacies and online stores. The home testing craze has turned kits into a commodity and even made them enviable holiday gifts.

On Tuesday, President Biden Omicron is expected to share a plan to combat its spreadIt includes distributing 500 million free quick tests to the public, although it is not yet clear how this target number will be reached. Various states including new York, New Jersey and Massachusetts, has also laid out plans to increase access to free quick tests.

Abbott Laboratories, which made headlines in August, destroy materials Referring to its limited shelf life, he said the company currently manufactures more than 50 million BinaxNOW rapid antigen testing kits each month. In January, the company said it would increase production to 70 million per month.

“We have maintained usable test components, many of which fell short during the pandemic, such as reagent bottles, cardboard packaging, swabs, nitrocellulose strips and even paper labeling so that we can have them when we really need them. “This is exactly what’s happening right now,” a company spokesman, John Koval, said in a statement.

Pharmacies have seen a surge in demand for at-home tests, most of which cost between $7 and $24. Some are starting to set limits on how many each customer can buy.

“After Thanksgiving and entering the upcoming holiday week, we’ve seen an unprecedented surge in demand for rapid OTC Covid-19 tests across the country,” a Walgreens spokesperson said. “Some stores may experience a temporary shortage of rapid OTC testing solutions.” The spokesperson added that a four-item purchase limit on test kits went into effect Tuesday.

“We are currently experiencing inventory shortages on some Covid-19 tests due to increased demand,” and the company is working to “provide additional Covid-19 test inventory” from its sales partners, the Amazon representative said.

Similarly, a Rite Aid spokesperson said in a statement that “demand outstrips manufacturers’ supply in many areas.”

A Target spokesperson said the company is working with vendors to meet “strong” demand this holiday season. Walmart and CVS representatives said online inventory for test kits is limited. A spokesperson for Walmart said “inventory levels” in stores are important.

Justin Vavrick, creator of the website NowInStock.net monitoring the availability of Covid tests at home Since spring, the companies have confirmed their statements.

“I think most of the inventory has been shifted to the stores,” Mr. Vavrick said in a phone call. In-store pickup is probably where you’ll have the best success.”

Some people are stocking up on test kits, citing concerns about the Omicron variant. Amber Decker, 45, a genetic genealogist in Columbus, Ohio, said she had initially started to amass a small stock of tests before the trip she and her friends planned to take in January. “I wanted to be able to ask everyone to test without asking everyone to spend money on tests,” he said. So whenever he saw test kits on sale, he bought them.

Ms. Decker currently has 13 separate tests and has ordered eight more. “We’ve used home tests a few times in the past when we’ve had worrying symptoms, but with the Omicron it looks like we’ll probably need to use them more often,” he said. But the cost of testing is “really increasing,” added Ms. Decker.

President Biden announced last week that private insurance companies will start reimbursing people for home tests purchased over the counter from mid-January. But the upfront cost of the tests and the effort involved in finding them limited their availability.

After visiting half a dozen different pharmacies in Champaign, Illinois and arriving empty-handed, Cynthia D’Angelo realized that the biggest gift of the season was a test kit, not a ’54 convertible or NFT.

Ms D’Angelo, an assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who is also immunosuppressed, said the university has been offering free rapid-fire tests to faculty and staff since last summer. But after planning to fly to California before Christmas, he decided to look for a few quick test kits of his own.

“Like all Walgreens and CVS in Champaign, I literally went to six different pharmacies and none of them had it,” Ms D’Angelo, 40, said in a phone interview. “The first place I went, if I had gotten there five minutes earlier, I would have bought the last one, but I literally saw someone pick the last one off the shelves.”

Fortunately, a friend who lives an hour away offered him a few tests.

“I’m paying him back,” said Ms. D’Angelo, “but it’s definitely a gift he can get and bring to me. And I’ll share them with my family in California.”