The Biden administration has announced it will be sending more than 25 million “American-made” masks to food banks and community health sites in an effort to reach the country’s most vulnerable.
"Many low-income Americans still lack affordable access to this basic protection," White House coronavirus response coordinator Jeffrey Zients said during a Covid-19 briefing on Wednesday.
To address this problem, the administration would be sending millions of masks starting in March to 1,300 community health sites and 60,000 food pantries and soup kitchens. These sites that will receive the masks are made up of 60 per cent of people who identify as an ethnic minority and nearly 1.4 million who are unhoused, according to a White House fact sheet about the new programme.
These masks, which will come in a package of two, will be made of “well-fitting cloth” and washable. Masks would also come in both child and adult sizes so more people can benefit from the initiative.
Through the programme, the White House estimated that about 12 to 15 million Americans will benefit from receiving the free face coverings amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“All of these masks will be made in America,” Mr Zients said.
Besides being free for Americans, the masks would also follow “guidance from the CDC” to ensure they were properly fitted.
The Biden administration said this was an effort to address equity amid the pandemic.
“One of the most impactful things we can do is wear a mask,” CDC Director Dr Rochelle Walensky when responding to the administration sending masks to communities across the United States.
Initially reports circulated that the Biden administration was considering sending masks directly to American households, an idea first floated under the Trump administration before the former president blocked the move. But instead the Biden administration would target low-income communities.
“We’re probably going to be sending out an awful lot of masks around the country very shortly, millions of them,” President Joe Biden said during a roundtable event with Black frontline workers on Tuesday.
“We could have saved literally an awful lot of lives if people had listened. We turned wearing masks into a political statement. If you were for this thing, you wore it, if we were for somebody else, you didn’t wear it, when in fact, it’s just plain basic science,” Mr Biden added.
Masks have become a focus of the Biden administration in the first weeks of office to address the pandemic.
Mr Biden signed an executive order on his first day that required masks to be worn on federal property and between interstate travel.
The White House said the programme providing more masks to Americans would not impact mask availability for healthcare workers.
