The White House announced Wednesday that the masks will come from the government's Strategic National Stockpile, which has more than 750 million of the highly protective masks on hand. The masks will be available for pickup at pharmacies and community health centers across the country. They will begin shipping this week for distribution starting late next week, the White House said.
This will be the largest distribution of free masks by the federal government to the public since the COVID-19 pandemic began. In early 2020, then-President Donald Trump's administration considered and then shelved plans to send masks to people at their homes. President Joe Biden embraced the initiative after facing mounting criticism this month over the inaccessibility — both in supply and cost — of N95 masks as the highly transmissible omicron variant swept across the country.
After facing similar criticism over a winter shortage of COVID-19 at-home test kits, Biden this week launched a website for Americans to order four rapid tests to be shipped to their homes for free, with the first tests to ship later this month.
The White House said the masks will be made available at pharmacies and community health centers that have partnered with the federal government's COVID-19 vaccination campaign.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday updated its guidance on face coverings to more clearly state that properly fitted N95 and KN95 masks offer the most protection against COVID-19. Still, it didn't formally recommend N95s over cloth masks.
The best mask “is the one that you will wear and the one you can keep on all day long, that you can tolerate in public indoor settings,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said last week.
Details were not immediately available on the specifics of the program, including the sort of masks to be provided, whether kid-size ones will be available and whether the masks could be reworn.
The White House said that “to ensure broad access for all Americans, there will be three masks available per person.”
N95 or KN95 masks are more widely available now than at any other time during the pandemic, though they are often more costly than less-protective surgical masks or cloth masks.
House Democrats are scrambling to hold a vote as soon as Tuesday on President Joe Biden's economic agenda — both the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill and the $1.85 trillion social safety net and climate bill. With Biden still overseas, the bill stands in flux. Jennifer Haberkorn, congressional reporter at the Los Angeles Times, joined Cheddar's "Opening Bell" to discuss.
Lauren Brody, author of "The Fifth Trimester," joined Cheddar to talk about the ongoing fight for a national paid family leave policy after it was cut from the Democratic reconciliation bill negotiation reportedly due to objections from Senator Manchin. Brody discussed how parents are often forced to choose between work and caring for their family and newborns — or even taking time to deal with a traumatic loss. "Frankly, it's appalling to me that we live in a place that doesn't support people who have experienced the death of a baby and then had to go right back to work," she noted.
Even with pandemic lockdowns, greenhouse gas levels reached new highs in 2020, according to the World Meteorological Organization. This report comes just a week ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, otherwise known as Cop26. Shannon Osaka, climate policy and solutions reporter at Grist, joined Cheddar's Between Bells to discuss.
Paid family & medical leave is left out of President Joe Biden's Build Back Better domestic policy plan. Abby Vesoulis, reporter for TIME joins Cheddar News to breakdown what this means for Americans.
Carlo's flying solo today, talking COP26 and climate change, another racially charged trial gets underway, SCOTUS takes on abortion and a stunning rise in traffic deaths points to a bigger societal breakdown sparked by the pandemic.
World leaders will converge this weekend at the 2021 G20 Summit in Rome and the UN COP26 conference in Glasgow with the climate crisis on the agenda. Lord Adair Turner, chair of the Energy Transitions Commission, joined Cheddar to discuss what people can expect to come out of the climate-focused conferences. Turner also noted that one of the biggest hurdles for the attending nations will be coming to a uniform decision on expanding on the Paris Climate Accord goals that have become insufficient to prevent global warming by 1.5 degrees celsius.
Emily Tisch Sussman, senior advisor at Paid Leave US, joined Cheddar's "Between Bells" to discuss paid leave being stripped from the latest budget bill and why it is crucial for parents to have paid time off. Sussman said the pandemic, in particular, highlighted the disparity between women, who left the work force in droves to care for family, and men who continue to work and be rehired as impacted sectors of the economy return.
The Dow, S&P, and Nasdaq each ended Friday's session at a record high as stocks rallied into the green. Chris Vecchio, Senior Analyst at DailyFX, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where he says this was an 'October to remember' for Wall Street.
