- Rapid COVID-19 tests are reselling for as much as $75 a pack, Bloomberg reported.
- This is more than three times as much as their normal retail price of between $20 and $23.
- One restaurant worker told Bloomberg she and other staff paid $180 for four test kits.
Rapid at-home COVID-19 test kits are reselling for as much as $75, which is more than three times as much as their normal retail price.
Bloomberg reported the findings on Wednesday.
Kroger and Walmart sell Abbott Laboratories' BinaxNOW at-home rapid tests for $23.99 and $19.98 respectively.
BinaxNOW kits, which include two COVID-19 tests, are now selling for around $75 on various digital marketplaces, seen by Insider and reported by Bloomberg.
New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a press release in late December that reports suggested BinaxNOW test kits, priced between $14 and $25, were costing up to $70 per pack.
An employee of a New York restaurant group told Bloomberg she and other staff members bought four test kits for $180 — $45 per test kit — from someone who previously got them for free from their employer.
One parent, based in Missouri, told Bloomberg that she was saving her last COVID-19 test kit in case her children showed serious symptoms of the virus.
Another parent told Bloomberg that after she saw rapid test kits going for $80 on online community groups, she decided to temporarily keep her child home from school because of the requirement to test before returning.
WeShield, a medical device supplier, told Bloomberg that it had raised costs of BinaxNOW kits from below the usual retail prices to around $50 because the company didn't want to face bankruptcy by selling them at a loss.
Soaring prices of rapid COVID-19 tests come as the US recorded more than one million new COVID-19 cases this week.
The Omicron variant, which has become the dominant coronavirus strain in the US, makes up 95% of the cases in the country, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
