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Comment by Nitrolo | Hacker News Reader

I'm wondering if they're subsidized, but the price in Germany at the supermarket hovers around 1€ each. I was really surprised to hear that these are not a thing in the US, any idea why?

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Here in the NL they're about €2,50 each, so there may be some subsidizing going on in Germany (or we're getting ripped off for €1,50 per test).

Schools and food banks can hand out free self tests so there is definitely some kind of subsidizing going on here, but in a different way.

Surely someone would import them and sell for €2 and then someone else would sell them for €1.5 and then someone else would sell them for €1.2 if you were just being ripped off. Is that really the only reason you could think of?

lol here in brazil you can only find these in drug stores, and is arround R$100 (which would be arround 15 euro/17usd).

Keep in mind that R$100 means 10% of monthly minimum wage.......

The FDA has approved 13 test kits for at-home use with a self-collected sample, according to https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/coronavirus-covid-19-and...

Germany has approved a much larger number of test kits for use, per https://antigentest.bfarm.de/ords/f?p=110:100:4793921863454:::::. It was >50 as of August 2021 according to https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2021/08/te..., including from American companies that the FDA has not approved.

I suspect that the supply-restriction effects of the approval situation go a long way toward explaining the pricing differences...

these are available in the US. they retail for $20-30 for a pair. they were easy to get from October-ish through mid December and now they’re sold out everywhere because of people testing for holiday gatherings.

Because FDA does not allow companies to sell them.

They are a thing in the US as well.

Because the ones you get in Europe are made in China.

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