Free N95 masks to be made available at pharmacies, White House says

BY SABRINA SIDDIQUI | UPDATED JAN 19, 2022 05:00 AM EST

Distribution of 400 million masks comes because the Biden administration can be providing free fast checks to fight the unfold of Covid-19

The Biden administration on Wednesday is anticipated to announce plans to make 400 million N95 masks accessible free at pharmacies and group well being facilities throughout the nation, a White Home official stated.

The transfer comes as President Biden has stepped up the federal authorities’s response to a nationwide surge in Covid-19 instances triggered by the extremely transmissible Omicron variant. Some scientists and docs have stated widespread single-layer material masks will not be adequate to guard in opposition to Omicron and referred to as on the administration to develop entry to high-filtration masks similar to N95s.

The nonsurgical N95 masks will begin to be accessible at pharmacies and group well being facilities late subsequent week and this system might be totally up and operating by early February, the White Home official stated. The masks might be sourced from the Strategic Nationwide Stockpile, the nation’s security web of medical-equipment provides.

“That is the biggest deployment of private protecting tools in U.S. historical past,” the official stated. “Consultants agree that masking is a crucial software to manage the unfold of Covid-19.”

Three masks might be accessible per particular person, the official stated, to make sure broad entry. Many of the pharmacies which are a part of the federal pharmacy vaccine program will distribute the masks, the official stated.

Mr. Biden has additionally sought to develop entry to Covid-19 checks amid nationwide shortages in provide. On Tuesday, the administration started taking orders via a brand new web site—https://www.covidtests.gov—for at-home fast checks that might be distributed to Individuals free. One other certainly one of Mr. Biden’s plans, beneath which personal insurers will cowl the price of over-the-counter Covid-19 checks, took impact this month.

Amid criticism from some public-health consultants that it didn’t sufficiently put together for the Omicron wave, the administration can be taking steps to hurry up availability and entry to Covid-19 antivirals, with hospitalizations on the rise and coverings in brief provide. The federal authorities has now bought 20 million therapy programs of Pfizer Inc.’s Covid-19 antiviral capsule Paxlovid and expects to have no less than half of them by June.

Mr. Biden has urged the general public to put on masks in public indoor areas however stopped in need of calling on state and native officers to convey again masks mandates amid the Omicron wave. In December, the president prolonged a masks mandate for vacationers on planes, buses and trains, and at home transportation hubs similar to airports and indoor bus terminals, because the variant started to take maintain within the U.S.

Final week, Mr. Biden acknowledged that high-quality masks weren’t simple to search out. “I do know that for some Individuals, a masks will not be all the time inexpensive or handy to get,” he stated. “I do know all of us want that we might lastly be executed with carrying masks. I get it. However…they’re a very necessary software to cease the unfold, particularly of a extremely transmittable Omicron variant.”

The Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention recommends individuals put on “essentially the most protecting masks you’ll be able to that matches properly and that you’ll put on constantly.” The general public-health company advises that well-fitting respirators accepted by the Nationwide Institute for Occupational Security and Well being, together with N95s, provide essentially the most safety in opposition to Covid-19.

N95 masks have a denser community of fibers than surgical or material masks. That tighter mesh, along with an electrostatic cost within the materials, typically makes such masks essentially the most environment friendly at trapping bigger droplets and aerosols which are exhaled by the wearer. Additionally they higher block such particles from being inhaled.

Earlier than this previous three-day vacation weekend started and disrupted some knowledge reporting, the U.S. seven-day common for newly reported Covid-19 instances had reached document highs of about 800,000 a day, Johns Hopkins College knowledge present.