Beijing, 20 Jan (Xinhua) -- The US government said on the 19th that it will distribute 400 million N95 masks to the public from next week.
The White House said the masks came from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Strategic Stock Of Emergency Medicines Program.
A White House official said the federal government began distributing the masks across the country this week, with people receiving them as early as later next week; at local pharmacies and community health centers participating in the federal government's COVID-19 vaccine program; and that the mask distribution program will continue until early February.
This is a notice taken Jan. 11 at a store in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, reminding people to wear masks. (Xinhua News Agency, photo by Wei Lan)
"To ensure that more Americans receive masks, there is a limit of 3 masks per person." The White House said.
The White House did not say whether the masks issued included children's models and whether they could be worn repeatedly, and other details of public concern.
Since the beginning of this year, as the more contagious mutation of the new coronavirus Olmi kerong strain has accelerated, the government led by President Joseph Biden has continued to be criticized for the lack of allocation of epidemic prevention resources. People complain that they can't buy or can't afford N95 masks, or want to test themselves for infection at home but can't buy a quick test kit.
People line up at a COVID-19 testing site in Times Square, New York, on Jan. 9. (Xinhua News Agency, photo by Guo Ke)
The US Center for Disease Control and Prevention updated the epidemic prevention guidelines on the correct wearing of masks on the 14th, clearly pointing out that wearing N95 masks and KN95 masks can provide "maximum protection", the key is to be the right size and insist on wearing.
A spokesman for the CDC said: "The main message we want to continue to convey is that wearing any mask is better than not wearing one." ”
At the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, there was a shortage of N95 masks in the US health care system. The CDC recently said the government has stockpiled medical N95 masks for the health care system, and this part of the inventory will not be sold or distributed to the public.
Healthcare workers work at a new driver-of-the-car COVID-19 testing center in Los Angeles County, USA, on Jan. 10. (Xinhua News Agency)
However, Reuters quoted some medical equipment suppliers as saying that the medical supply chain is still fragile, and if the American people take the wearing of N95 masks as a daily demand, then there may be a shortage of such masks again, and the first to be affected is the small hospitals with insufficient funds.
Mask manufacturers in the United States currently produce millions of N95 masks per month.
Recently, the epidemic in the United States has rebounded seriously, and the number of confirmed cases and hospitalized cases of children with new crown has continued to surge. Statistics released by Johns Hopkins University in the United States show that as of the evening of the 18th, the cumulative number of confirmed cases of new crown in the United States exceeded 66 million, accounting for about one-fifth of the US population. (Guo Qian)
Source: Xinhua News Agency