Think You Have COVID? Here’s Where to Get Your Free Test and What to Eat

As Omicron fans out across the US and more people worry that they may have this subtler strain of COVID-19, you can now get free at-home tests sent to your door, starting today. Just go to this link and order them and you'll get your at-home COVID test in the mail soon.

If and when you test positive, there are foods you can eat that can lower your likelihood of severe symptoms, by arming your immune system's rapid response to the virus. There are even foods to eat – such as zinc– that have been shown to help speed up the response to the virus, shortening the duration of the days you'll feel any symptoms at all.

The virus has one enemy, and it is your immune system. Give your body the sleep it needs, the stress-relief you deserve, and the essential immune-boosting nutrients to strengthen your immune cells for the battle, and think of it this way: You are trying to eat to win. If you get a positive response to your test, the more vitamins and nutrients you can eat that will arm your immune cells for the fight, the better.

Think of your immune system as a big city police force, says Dr. Bob Lahita, an immunologist, author of Immunity Strong, and expert on the topic of how to help your immunity keep you healthy for decades to come. When a situation occurs, he explains, the immune cells need to have a swift and strong response to go out into the body and seek out the virus and neutralize it, by recognizing that the coronavirus "spikes" are present. The immune cells have to be armed and ready to de-activate these viral invaders before they can make you sick. When you have COVID-19, what you eat matters.

The immune system needs vitamin C, vitamin D, zinc, iron, and other nutrients like vitamins A and E to fully arm itself and be strong enough to mount a quick defense. The 13 best foods to strengthen your immunity include citrus fruits, leafy greens, iron-rich beans and legumes, among other plant-based staples.

If it's impossible to load up on all these nutrient-dense foods, take a multivitamin every day to backstop your diet and fill in the gaps, suggests Dr. Bob (as he prefers to be known). And if you do that and take vitamin D and zinc, you will be arming your cells with the best nutrients to fight a cold or even shorten the symptoms he says. The reason this matters, he adds, is that viruses all work in similar ways and trigger the immune system's response. So the stronger your immune system's cells, the better.

In a surprising study out of the University of Oregon, two compounds in cannabis were able to prevent the momentum of the famous spikes of the virus that are known to latch onto your cells and penetrate the membrane in order to create havoc in the body. That means that these spikes have another disrupter, other than the immune cells, and it is derived from cannabis, or specifically hemp.

The compounds were discovered in the lab that can "blanket" the spikes and neutralize and even prevent COVID from causing illness, at least in theory. Human tests are yet to be done, but this is promising to anyone who would be willing to eat the cannabis compounds, as a way of preventing and short-circuiting the coronavirus in its tracks.

Although the omicron variant appears to not make most people lose their sense of taste and smell, if you do lose these it can be disconcerting and even a safety issue (in the case of fire). So there are a few foods that appear to help trigger the re-set of your olfactory senses and your taste buds, and most of them are the staples from childhood that you know by heart. So eating peanut butter or sucking on lemons can help your brain believe that you are smelling and tasting your food again. But you may just need to be patient and know that it will come back, little by little, according to experts.

If you think you have COVID and want to get your free at-home test, here is where to get it. Then if you have it, here's what to eat to arm your immune system and help your body mount a swift response.