SANTA MONICA, CA – About 400 million N95 masks will be available to all Americans free of charge starting next week.
The masks will be released from the Strategic National Stockpile and available for pickup at local community health centers and pharmacies, the Associated Press reported.
Details of the plan – part of a broader management program to contain the spread of COVID-19 – were still evolving. The White House is expected to announce formal details on the distribution plan on Wednesday. In general, the N95 masks will be available for pickup by the end of next week at Santa Monica pharmacies and health centers that are partners in the federal government’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign.
The release still leaves a reserve of 350,000 of the highly protective N95 masks in the United States, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says offer better protection than cloth face coverings against the Omicron variant of the coronavirus. N95 and KN95 masks are now more widely available than when the pandemic began, but are more expensive than the less protective surgical or cloth masks.
The CDC updated its face covering guidance on Friday, clarifying that properly fitting N95 and KN95 masks offer the best protection against COVID-19, but they did not recommend them over cloth masks.
CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said last week the best mask “is the one you wear and wear all day, that you can tolerate in public indoor places”.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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