Cost of masks and tests deepens a pandemic wedge between the haves and the

In recent weeks, as the omicron variant spread rapidly across the United States, Americans have found that the financial costs of the pandemic are increasingly falling on their shoulders.

As Covid-19 cases have climbed, public health experts have urged people to dump their cloth masks in favor of higher-quality options and to test more frequently to curb the virus.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday updated its mask guidance to note that the disposable N95 or KN95 masks offer the “highest level of protection” against the virus.

For some, the added financial burden is an irritation — but still affordable. To others, the prospect of paying $1 for a single disposable mask or $24 for a test kit is an economic impossibility, raising the specter that the pandemic will continue to exacerbate inequalities.

During the pandemic, three quarters of workers said it was very or somewhat difficult to make ends meet, 40 percent said they couldn’t come up with $400 in the event of an emergency and around 20 percent said they went hungry because they couldn’t afford enough to eat, according to the Shift Project, an ongoing survey of American hourly wage workers operated by Harvard University sociologist Daniel Schneider.

Most also do not get paid sick leave and have continued to work when ill because they cannot afford to miss a paycheck, he said. 

“These are the workers facing the virus, and we are asking them to buy high-quality masks and pay for rapid tests?” Schneider said. “For many of these workers, it’s just not a possibility — this is about food on the table. And when you face that impossible choice, the devolution of pandemic prevention to impoverished workers is really unrealistic.” 

The White House also announced that private health insurance companies would be required to reimburse up to eight at-home Covid-19 tests a month, and later this week the Biden administration will make up to four tests available to U.S. residents via an online portal. President Biden also said Thursday his administration was planning to make “high-quality” masks available to the public at no charge but declined to offer details, including when the masks would be available.

Still, workers and experts have expressed frustration that the state and federal governments are not moving more quickly and transparently to provide rapid tests and high-quality filtration masks, such as the N95 and the KN95, to residents at low cost or for free, especially in recent months as case and hospitalization numbers spiked amid the very infectious omicron variant. Many can’t afford to wait to be reimbursed or don’t have health care coverage. 

In some cities, local mutual aid groups — many created amid the George Floyd protests during the summer of 2020 — have worked to fill the gap. Organizers in Portland, Oregon, and in Seattle have poured their own money into the effort and put out calls for cash and test kits to hand out to those in need.

The founders of the groups said they hoped to raise enough money to make up for their expenses, but ultimately they said they couldn’t ignore that testing had become inaccessible to those without …