February 2, 2021 1:22PM # At-Home Self-Administered COVID Tests Without a Prescription May Finally Be Available–It Didn’t Have to Take This Long By [Jeffrey A. Singer](https://www.cato.org/people/jeffrey-singer) --- SHARE Yesterday the White House [announced](https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/02/01/coronavirus-home-test-ellume/) it was buying 8.4 million *Ellume* at-home, self-administered diagnostic tests it hopes to get to consumers across the country starting later this month. The at-home test is cheap and rapid and will enable people who have no COVID symptoms but are nonetheless infected and contagious, to test themselves for the disease. It has been a great challenge to stop the virus from being spread unwittingly by people who are asymptomatic carriers, who may make up [30 percent or more](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2774707?utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_term=010721) of people infected with the virus. This test should therefore be a great help in getting the pandemic under control. The *Ellume* at-home test received Emergency Use Authorization from the Food and Drug Administration in mid-December 2020. At-home self-administered tests have actually been available at least since last November, when the FDA granted Emergency Use Authorization to the *Lucira* at-home self-administered test. But [incomprehensibly](https://www.cato.org/blog/prescription-not-required-home-pregnancy-test-or-home-hiv-test-why-require-one-home-covid-test?queryID=e612902ff641a2b2c9f9dd6e826ddedc) the FDA requires people to get a prescription from a health care practitioner in order to purchase the test to self-administer at home. And providers are instructed to give a prescription only to patients who are symptomatic. These requirements, of course, cancel out any advantages an at-home test provides controlling the pandemic. As we discussed last week at a Cato [online policy forum](https://www.cato.org/events/defending-our-right-test-how-fda-restricts-direct-consumer-home-testing?queryID=a3f68259d22752448df64c9111004c59), the FDA has a history of restricting the public from at-home tests that directly provide them with information about their health status—ranging from at-home pregnancy tests to at-home HIV tests to at-home salivary diagnostic genetic tests. The FDA is paternalistically concerned that autonomous adults may improperly apply the information they learn about themselves—an [overly-broad interpretation](https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3914&context=dlj) of its responsibility to assure the “safety” and “efficacy” of newly developed tests. It is good that we will finally get to see at-home tests make their way to the general public. It is a shame that the public needlessly waited so long. ##### Related Tags [COVID-19](https://www.cato.org/covid-19) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).