The White House will announce on Wednesday that four hundred million N95 masks will be distributed free of charge supply chain resilience has raised concerns

Financial Associated Press (Shanghai, editor Shi Zhengcheng) news, on Wednesday morning local time, a number of mainstream media quoted "White House officials" reported that the Biden administration will announce on Wednesday that it will distribute 400 million N95-level masks to the United States for free.

This plan is also one of a series of initiatives taken by the U.S. government to deal with the Opmy Kerong virus. Due to the high pathogenicity of the virus, the US CDC also recommends in the latest guidelines that people wear N95 or KN95 masks that are more protective than cloth masks. According to the White House official, people can receive these masks at pharmacies or community health centers as early as later next week, and the supply will continue to increase. It is reported that these masks come from the national strategic reserves of the United States.

Unlike the COVID-19 test, in order to ensure universal coverage, the Biden administration's mask program can only provide three free N95 masks for every American.

To ease public criticism of the White House's "ineffective fight against O'Mitchon," the Biden administration announced last week that it would distribute 1 billion home-based rapid test kits and free masks to the American public. According to the US CDC, after the surge in the number of outbreaks in the first two weeks of January, the average number of new confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States in the past week has remained at 700,000.

(Number of new confirmed cases in the United States in a single day, source: CDC)

For the international capital market, in addition to paying attention to the trend of the epidemic in the United States, the supply of local epidemic prevention materials also affects the nerves of shareholders. While the Biden administration has made it clear that the 400 million masks will be allocated from the reserve, supply chains could face a new round of tests if most Americans use N95 or similar masks as "daily" consumables in accordance with government guidelines.

Speaking before Congress last Tuesday, Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services Dawn O'Connell said there were 737 million N95 masks in the government's medical stockpile and that the department was embarking on a monthly order of 141 million masks from manufacturers until the outbreak eased. O'Connell specifically said these contracts could also require producers to cut capacity by 20-30 percent when demand isn't high.