During the height of the Coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent vaccine rollout, numerous businesses initiated promotional campaigns to support consumers, essential workers, and vaccinated individuals. These initiatives ranged from free food and beverages to discounted services and digital resources, creating a unique landscape of promotional offers. The response to the COVID-19 pandemic by U.S. businesses created a unique landscape of promotional offers. These initiatives were categorized primarily into two waves: early pandemic support for those in isolation (focused on free delivery and digital access) and later vaccine incentives (focused on food, entertainment, and retail discounts).
Following the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, a significant number of businesses introduced incentive programs to encourage vaccination. These offers generally required customers to present a valid vaccination card as proof of inoculation. The most prominent category of vaccine incentives involved food and beverage freebies. Krispy Kreme launched one of the most widely publicized offers, providing a free original glazed doughnut to customers who showed their vaccination cards. This promotion was valid for the remainder of 2021, allowing customers to redeem the offer once per day. Other food and beverage companies offered similar incentives. White Castle offered free dessert-on-a-stick to anyone providing proof of vaccination during a specific window from April 22 to May 31. Super Duper Burgers, a San Francisco Bay Area business, provided free fries to vaccinated customers. Pollo Tropical provided free delivery on app and website orders through April 3 with no minimum purchase required. Red Lobster offered free delivery for website orders over $30 through March 29. KFC provided free delivery through April 26 via their website, Grubhub, or Seamless. Moe’s Southwest Grill offered free delivery on app and website orders over $10 through April.
Beyond food, several businesses offered discounts on goods and services. The Mint Dispensary, located in Phoenix, offered free weed edibles to customers showing proof of vaccination. Oak & Reel, a Detroit restaurant, provided a 50 percent discount on dine-in meals for customers with vaccination cards. Rumbleseat Bar & Grille, a Massachusetts restaurant, offered a 20 percent discount on food orders on Mondays to vaccinated patrons. Up-Down, a Minneapolis-based arcade chain, gave 20 free tokens to fully vaccinated customers through the end of the summer. Several cities and cultural institutions used their venues as vaccination sites while offering future incentives. Individuals receiving the Johnson & Johnson vaccine at Citi Field or Yankee Stadium in New York received a free ticket to a future game. Budweiser partnered with various retailers to offer free beer to vaccinated individuals. A coalition of over 100 restaurants in Connecticut offered free drinks (including non-beer options) with the purchase of food upon presentation of a vaccination card. In various states, including South Carolina, local breweries offered free beers to individuals who received their vaccinations at on-site drives.
A comprehensive list curated in September 2020 identified 318 deals, including products, services, subscriptions, and memberships that were either free or heavily discounted (50% or more) during the pandemic. This list encompassed a wide range of categories, though specific items beyond the food and service offers detailed above were not itemized in the provided segments. A variety of companies provided free access to digital tools and subscriptions to aid those working or studying from home. While specific brand names for these services were not listed in the provided text, the category of "free WiFi" and "subscriptions" was explicitly mentioned as part of the broader support landscape.
In a separate ongoing federal programme, people in the United States can now order more free Covid-19 tests from the federal government as the country heads into respiratory virus season with high levels of the coronavirus already circulating. Each household is eligible to receive four at-home test kits, which can be requested from COVIDTests.gov. They’ll be shipped for free starting next week through the US Postal Service. This is the program’s seventh round of distribution, which has delivered more than 900 million free tests directly to US residents since it started in the winter of 2021, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services. The rapid antigen tests take about 30 minutes to give results. This next set of tests will be able to detect currently circulating variants and can be used for testing in people who have Covid-19 symptoms and those who don’t, as well as in those who are up-to-date on their Covid-19 vaccination and those who aren’t. “Reopening this popular program is the latest step by the Biden-Harris Administration to ensure that over-the-counter COVID-19 tests are available to all who want them this fall and winter,” HHS Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response Dawn O’Connell said in a statement.
Updated on October 8, 2024, U.S. households can once again order up to four free at-home COVID-19 tests at COVIDTests.gov. The tests will detect current COVID-19 variants and can be used through the end of the year. Orders are free - no shipping costs. Beginning on Monday, September 25, 2023, every U.S. household can again place an order on COVIDTests.gov to receive four more free COVID-19 rapid tests delivered directly to their home. Orders will ship free starting the week of October 2, 2023. Here’s what you need to know: there is a limit of one order per residential address. One order includes four individual rapid antigen COVID-19 tests. COVIDTests.gov has more details about at-home tests, including extended shelf life and updated expiration dates. The COVIDTests.gov program has distributed over 755 million tests directly to more than two-thirds of American households, 310 million of which went to households in underserved communities. In addition to offering free tests to order, the U.S. government will continue to make COVID-19 tests available to uninsured individuals and underserved communities through existing outreach programs.
People in the United States can now order more free Covid-19 tests from the federal government as the country heads into respiratory virus season with high levels of the coronavirus already circulating. Each household is eligible to receive four at-home test kits, which can be requested from COVIDTests.gov starting today. They’ll be shipped for free starting next week through the US Postal Service. This is the program’s seventh round of distribution, which has delivered more than 900 million free tests directly to US residents since it started in the winter of 2021, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services. The rapid antigen tests take about 30 minutes to give results. This next set of tests will be able to detect currently circulating variants and can be used for testing in people who have Covid-19 symptoms and those who don’t, as well as in those who are up-to-date on their Covid-19 vaccination and those who aren’t. “Reopening this popular program is the latest step by the Biden-Harris Administration to ensure that over-the-counter COVID-19 tests are available to all who want them this fall and winter,” HHS Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response Dawn O’Connell said in a statement.
“Before you visit with your family and friends this holiday season, take a quick test and help keep them safe from COVID-19.” The available tests also include an option with features that make it more accessible for people with disabilities affecting dexterity or vision to use. More information about ordering these tests is available at ACL.gov/AccessibleTests. “COVID-19 testing can help you know if you have COVID-19 so you can decide what to do next, like getting treatment to reduce your risk of severe illness and taking steps to lower your chances of spreading the virus to others,” according to the HHS Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response. To reduce the spread of Covid-19, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that people who test positive stay home and away from others until they are fever-free for at least 24 hours. The US Food and Drug Administration recommends that people take multiple rapid tests to ensure they do not have Covid-19: two negative tests for those with symptoms and three for those without symptoms, performed 48 hours apart.
Most Americans have some immunity from prior infections or vaccinations, but under a quarter of U.S. adults took last fall’s COVID-19 shot. Using the swab, people can detect current virus strains ahead of the fall and winter respiratory virus season and the holidays. Over-the-counter COVID-19 at-home tests typically cost around $11, as of last year. Insurers are no longer required to cover the cost of the tests. If you already have COVID-19 tests at home, check the expiration date on the box. Many of the tests have been given an extended expiration from the date listed on the box. You can check on the Food and Drug Administration’s website to see if that’s the case for any of your remaining tests at home. Are these tests actually free? There’s no cost for households requesting the tests, but U.S. taxpayers have already paid a significant amount for the testing program. Since COVID-19 first began its spread in 2020, the U.S. government has poured billions of dollars into developing and purchasing COVID-19 tests as well as vaccines. The Biden administration has given out 1.8 billion COVID-19 tests, including half distributed to households by mail. It’s unclear how many tests the government still has on hand.
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