Last winter, Mainers found themselves refreshing websites and circling pharmacies trying to find scant at-home COVID-19 tests.
Demand for at-home tests has now declined immensely and supplies are stable, local pharmacists say. They point in part to a federal program that mailed tests directly to people’s homes and a more relaxed attitude toward the pandemic as it is well into its third year.
That could change after this Friday, when the White House is expected to stop its at-home testing program after Congress declined to fund it further.
Pharmacists say it could create a rush for tests as school starts, but they do not expect things to get as bad as they were in the winter.
At Family Pharmacy in Eastport and Machias, owner Ben Okafor said he has had a steady supply of Flow-Flex at-home tests for four months. People come in to buy them occasionally, such as when family is coming from out of town, but demand dropped off when booster shots became available, he said.
He worries people are not testing enough as it is and that could get worse when the program ends.
“It does worry me, but what can I do?” he said.
Testing demand was fueled by the spread of the contagious omicron variant and coupled with a downscaling of large testing sites. At-home tests are not as accurate as those PCR tests, but they can provide quick results and rule out the presence of COVID-19 if someone is showing similar symptoms. Suppliers got a major boost when the White House injected $1 billion into production prior to the federal program’s launch of its shipping service.
Maine started its own at-home test shipping service for socially vulnerable residents through a grant of more than $7 million in January. It has shipped more than 85,000 tests as of Tuesday with nearly 1,600 on hand, Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention spokesperson Robert Long said.
He said the state plans to continue to supply free tests through its grant partnership with the Rockefeller Foundation. Those free programs may have dampened retail demand. Joe Bruno, the owner of the Augusta-based Community Pharmacies chain, said it was not worth stocking the tests when free tests became available.
Shane Savage, who runs Savage’s Drug, a Fairfield-based local chain, said demand for both at-home tests and testing at the pharmacy has dropped off dramatically, with maybe four or five tests run each week and perhaps 50 at-home tests in stock.
But he expected that might soon change as the school seasons kick in and more people start spending time together. He said the pharmacy is already preparing for tests to go back in high demand.
“I’ve known people who were positive and didn’t even know they were sick,” he said. “I think the fear factor of it has kind of gone away.”