The White House is upping its campaign encouraging the public to wear masks to combat COVID-19 by announcing a plan to distribute face coverings across the country to low-income people.
Starting in March, the Biden administration will send more than 25 million washable cloth masks to roughly 1,300 community health centers, as well as 60,000 food pantries and soup kitchens, in the hope that an extra 12 to 15 million people will wear face coverings if they are offered from for free, according to the White House on Wednesday.
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“Not all Americans are wearing masks regularly. Not all Americans have access. And not all masks are equal,” said Jeff Zients, the administration’s COVID-19 response coordinator, during Wednesday’s White House pandemic briefing.
The program of providing the made-in-America masks will last until May.
“Recipients will be encouraged to take an individually wrapped package of two masks for each person in their household,” a White House fact sheet explained.
The administration reiterated that the program would not take away resources from healthcare workers and that it was properly targeted to low-income people because two-thirds of community health center patients live in poverty and slightly less come from minority communities, while almost 1.4 million are homeless.
On Wednesday, Zients also announced his team is ready to distribute 3 million to 4 million doses of the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine as early as next week — if it receives emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration.
“Johnson has announced it aims to deliver a total of 20 million doses by the end of March,” he said. “We’re working with the company to accelerate the pace and time frame by which they deliver the full 400 million doses, which is required by contract by the end of June.”
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On his first day in office, President Biden laid out a 100-day mask challenge to increase the number of face coverings worn across the country. As part of a raft of executive actions, he mandated masks be worn on federal properties and on some forms of public transport, including trains, airplanes, vessels, and intercity buses.
