Shoppers can buy the BinaxNow kit online at CVS, Walgreens, and Walmart for $23.99 suggested retail price, plus shipping. The tests are being shipped to retail stores this week, so customers should be able to find the kits on physical store shelves soon.

Even with half the country already partially vaccinated, public health experts say that increasing access to testing is critical to beating the virus and keeping it at bay.

“Until the pandemic is clearly over, to have testing resources in all platforms, home, point of care, and hospital, is an essential tool,” said Thomas Denny, professor of medicine in the Department of Medicine at Duke University Medical Center.

According to a Monmouth University poll released April 15, up to 20 percent of Americans say they won’t get vaccinated. “That’s a lot of potential infections going forward,” Denny said.

For the BinaxNow, the kit and experience is similar to buying and using an at-home pregnancy test. The box contains three items, a dropper, a card, and a swab.

The user opens the card to start the test and applies six drops from the dropper in the top hole to start the test. Then they swab the sides of each nostril, not needing to go all the way back, circling five times, to take the sample. Then they open the card and insert the swab in the test hole and rotate three times to start the test. After 15 minutes, a line in the test window indicates a positive result. A line in the control window means negative.