Biden administration announces plan to distribute 400 million free N95 masks
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The Biden administration on Wednesday announced a plan to distribute 400 million N95 masks from the Strategic National Stockpile and make them available for free at tens of thousands of pharmacies and health centers in the U.S.
The masks will be available starting next week, and the program will be “fully up and running by early February,” a White House official told CNN ahead of the official announcement.
Adults will be allowed to take three masks each, a White House official told The Washington Post. “We anticipate making additional, high-quality masks for children available in the near future,” the official told the paper.
“I think it’s a good idea and will give piece of mind and access to N95 masks for those who want to use them,” Infectious Disease News Editorial Board Member Carlos del Rio, MD, told Healio in an email.
The announcement came days after the CDC — amid a surge in cases caused by the highly contagious omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 — updated its COVID-19 mask guidance for consumers to say that “people can choose respirators such as N95s and KN95s” without worrying about supply shortages.
Before the update, the CDC had not encouraged the public wear N95 or KN95 respirators, which offer a higher level of protection than the cloth masks worn by many people, because of supply shortages. It continues to say that respirators specifically labeled as “surgical N95s,” which protect against additional hazards like blood splatter, be reserved only for health care personnel.
N95s and KN95s filter at least 95% of particles in the air when fitted properly, according to the CDC. The White House official told the Post that the distribution of N95s will be the largest deployment of personal protective equipment in U.S. history.
Del Rio said 400 million masks may be a sufficient amount now with cases declining in at least parts of the country, but he criticized the administration for moving too slowly on this and other measures to combat the omicron surge.
“Wish this had been done a month ago,” del Rio said. “The administration keeps doing the right things — first testing, now masking — but doing them late.”
The administration’s website to distribute free at-home COVID-19 tests launched a day early on Tuesday, but weeks after experts said it would have been most useful — in time to avert a surge of cases related to the holidays.
References:
CDC. Types of masks and respirators. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/types-of-masks.html. Updated Jan. 14, 2022. Accessed Jan. 19, 2022.
Diamond J, LeBlanc P. Biden administration to distribute 400 million N95 masks to the public for free. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/19/politics/n95-masks-biden-administration-covid-19/index.html. Published Jan. 19, 2022. Accessed Jan. 19, 2022.
Sun LH, Diamond D. White House to distribute 400 million free N95 masks starting next week. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/01/19/free-n95-masks/. Published Jan. 19, 2022. Accessed Jan. 19, 2022.
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