From Monday, pensioners and other concession card holders will be able to access 10 free COVID Rapid Antigen Tests (RATs) in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW).
Victor Dominello, Minister for Customer Service and Digital Government of the Government of NSW, said: “While the winter season is coming to an end, the risk of COVID-19 remains and we want to ensure that the RAT for pensioners and concession card holders be easily accessible.”
Under the new program, which will run until the end of October, the eligible people mainly include pensioners, elderly and low-income people, reports Xinhua news agency.
“This builds on our previous commitment to the federal government’s concessional access programme, which was scrapped at the end of last month,” NSW Minister Mark Coure said.
A factsheet from the country’s Department of Health showed that from January to July this year, the Australian government introduced a temporary RAT concessional access scheme, allowing concession card holders to take 20 free tests over a six-month period.
As of Monday morning, Australia has recorded 9,976,582 confirmed cases and 13,648 deaths.
