The Biden administration is planning to distribute hundreds of millions of N95 masks free of charge to pharmacies and community centers across the country in order to make it appear they are doing something about the surge of positive coronavirus tests sweeping the nation.
The government has deep-sixed the advisory that we all wear masks at all times everywhere because, after more than a year of studies questioning their uselessness, the geniuses in the White House have decided that cloth masks are not better than nothing and what’s needed are the more expensive face coverings.
Too bad. We were just getting used to all those decorative face coverings — the grotesque and sublime.
The N95 doesn’t present as many opportunities for self-expression. But the Biden administration says they will help “slow the spread” of the coronavirus and “save lives.”
Where have we heard that before?
The 400 million newly available masks will be non-surgical N95s that are sourced from the government’s Strategic National Stockpile, as part of an effort to ensure Americans can access the more-protective masks during a record surge of Covid-19 cases.
The initiative — which POLITICO first reported Tuesday evening — comes in response to growing pressure on the administration to encourage Americans to abandon cloth masks in favor of more protective versions, amid evidence that the cloth coverings do not work as well against the more transmissible Omicron variant.
Public health experts and former Biden transition advisers had also lobbied the White House in recent weeks to give out masks, arguing that cheap and genuine N95s are still difficult for people to find.
They’re difficult to find because in the early days of the pandemic hospitals were buying up every spare surgical mask they could find.
And early in the pandemic, they were nearly impossible to find because we sent our friends in China millions and millions of masks, gowns, and other PPE equipment before the existence of the coronavirus was made public.
But the government eventually bought up 400 million of these masks and put them into a “Strategic National Stockpile,” which I suppose is sort of like the Strategic Petroleum Reserve but without all that icky oil.
Hopefully, they’re not trying to save money by storing the oil and the masks in the same place.
President Joe Biden previewed the plan last week, acknowledging at the time that for some individuals, obtaining high-quality masks is still “not always affordable or convenient.”
“I know we all wish that we could finally be done with wearing masks,” Biden said during a speech announcing a new effort to use the military to support hospitals. “I get it. But they’re a really important tool to stop the spread, especially of a highly transmittable Omicron variant.”
Biden is slated to hold a press conference later on Wednesday, where he’s expected to defend the administration’s efforts to tamp down the Omicron surge and tout the mask plan.
I will gratefully accept anything free from the United States government, including a nice, shiny mask. Studies show the N95 is slightly better in preventing the spread of disease than the nearly useless cloth mask, but the best advice — as it has been since the beginning of the pandemic — is that if you are vulnerable to serious disease, you should stay at home and avoid all contact with people.