It’s the hottest consumer product being snatched up by city residents these days — the government’s free COVID-19 test kits.
A “huge” 55 percent of pandemic-weary Big Apple residents have already applied for the at- home tests from the US government Web site covidtests.gov, according to a survey of 2,500 respondents conducted by the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health.
That’s market penetration that any manufacturer would die for.
“I was shocked,” said Dr. Ayman El-Mohandes, dean of the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health, to The Post.
“I didn’t expect that high a number ordering the at-home test,” he said. “It’s a huge number.”
The poll is believed to be the first public survey in the US that measured how many people are ordering the rapid COVID at-home test kits.
The remaining 45 percent of respondents said they had not ordered the home test from the site.
Two-thirds of respondents who received a vaccine booster ordered the COVID test, according to the survey. By contrast, only about one-third of unvaccinated respondents said they ordered it.
“This is an indication of the vigilance of vaccinated individuals in containing the spread of the virus,” El-Mohandes said, adding that it is “disappointing” that so many unvaccinated people hadn’t sought out the free tests, posing an ongoing risk to the overall city population.
“It’s a shame that so many among us who are not vaccinated would be resistant to getting the COVID test,” he said. “They should be more willing to get tested to contain the virus, not less.”
The poll also found that mask-wearing dropped compared to a year ago.
In January 2021, 80 percent of respondents reported they always wore a mask in public. In the recent survey, 72 percent said the same.
The top three reasons cited by residents for wanting the coronavirus home tests were: to use if they had COVID symptoms (30 percent), to have a home kit available in case they needed it (25 percent) and to self test before getting together with friends or family (18 percent).
The Biden administration unveiled its Web site offering the tests in mid-January as the COVID-19 Omicron variant walloped the nation and states such as New York, which includes the Big Apple’s 6.6 million adults.
Still, El-Mohandes expressed concern about how speedily the government is delivering the tests to residents.
He ordered an at-home COVID test shortly after the Web site launched — and has yet to receive it.
He said at home testing, if properly used, will be an important component as New York and the US move from a pandemic to an endemic.
“Home testing promises to play an important role in the next chapter of limiting the
spread of the COVID virus. Its availability and the way that the consumer will use it, will
determine the success of this intervention,” the CUNY public-health dean said.
The CUNY School of Public Health poll was conducted from Jan. 28 to Jan. 30 by Consensus Strategies and has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.5 percentage points. Respondents were interviewed on phone lines, mobile phones by text and in Web interviews.
One in eight of the CUNY poll’s respondents — or 12 percent — said they ordered tests in order to work or for future travel.
One of six respondents — 16 percent — said they didn’t need an at-home COVID test kit.
Asked another way, the CUNY poll revealed that 38 percent of respondents said they ordered the home test for convenience, while 29 percent of New Yorkers said they did so because of long lines at community or medical testing sites during the recent Omicron wave, which has receded.
Forty percent of Staten Island residents complained about long lines that were pervasive during the peak of the Omicron wave in the city in December and January —the highest gripe rate of any borough in the Big Apple.
Nearly two-thirds of Manhattan residents, or 64 percent, applied for the COVID home tests on the federal Web site — the highest rate among the five boroughs.
Fifty-six percent of both Staten Island and Queens residents said they applied for the COVID home tests, followed by 51 percent of respondents in Brooklyn and 48 percent in The Bronx.
The poll found that 21 percent of city residents — one in five — said they tested positive for COVID after Dec. 1. One in four Hispanics — 26 percent — tested positive during the Omicron wave, the highest rate for any racial group in the city, which the survey attributed to the number of Latinos who face higher exposure as front-line service workers.
Residents with more education and income had the highest rates of requesting the at-home testing kits.
For example, 70 percent of residents earning between $100,000 and $150,000 ordered the COVID tests compared to a 40 percent rate for those making less than $25,000 a year.
Nearly two thirds of residents with a college graduate degree ordered the tests, while only 43 percent of adults with a high-school degree or less ordered one.
As for race, 61 percent of whites ordered the test, followed by Asians and Latinos at 53 percent and 48 percent among blacks.
