U.S. Postal Service leaders drafted plans in early April to distribute millions of masks nationwide, but the plans never came to fruition.
A cache of nearly 10,000 pages of emails, legal documents, and more, obtained by watchdog group American Oversight, reveal that the Postal Service drafted a news release in April announcing plans to send out 650 million face masks, or five masks for every household. The service would have been uniquely qualified to carry out such a massive undertaking, as it delivers to every ZIP code.
Distribution of the masks would start “in areas which HHS has identified as experiencing high transmission rates of COVID-19 and to workers providing essential services throughout the nation during this pandemic,” the memo said. The Postal Service said it would launch the operation in conjunction with the White House coronavirus task force, the Department of Health and Human Services, and “a consortium of textile manufacturers.”
The news release was never distributed, and the plan was scrapped.
“There was concern from some in the White House Domestic Policy Council and the office of the vice president that households receiving masks might create concern or panic,” one administration official told the Washington Post.
HHS instead devised the $675 million plan to distribute reusable masks “to critical infrastructure sectors, companies, healthcare facilities, and faith-based and community organizations across the country.”
An HHS spokesperson told the Washington Post that roughly 600 million of the 650 million masks ordered have been distributed, in addition to 125 million others set aside for schools.
