People desperate for at-home COVID test kits are turning to resellers on eBay, Craigslist
Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed spending another $2.7 billion to expand testing and boost hospital staffing, while calling for a new law to give workers more paid time off if they get sick.
Experts say reselling kits in small numbers and without a large markup price is not illegal -- nor is purchasing these products -- but there are risks, for both buyers and sellers. The Biden administration recently vowed to distribute 500 million free at-home tests, but it's unclear when a website will launch for Americans to request these tests and how soon they'll be shipped out. A senior government official told CNN last week it is"working through all the details. And we'll have those in the coming weeks."
Beyond issues of equity, buying COVID-19 tests from strangers is subject to fraud -- people don't know who they are or what they're really offering. It's also not the first time these issues of scarcity and equity have played out during the pandemic. Early last year, concierge healthcare provider One Medical came under investigation for allowing friends and family members of its executives and its wealthier clients to skip the line to get a vaccine.
However, pandemic profiteering could potentially end badly for sellers. In the early days of the pandemic, Matt and Noah Colvin rose to infamy for hoarding and selling hand sanitizer. Marketplaces like Amazon and eBay pulled their listings and warned others they could lose their accounts. They ended up with over 17,000 bottles and nowhere to sell them, according to the New York Times.
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