(CNN) – US President Joe Biden said Tuesday that the White House will “likely” send face masks directly to Americans as the country continues to grapple with the coronavirus pandemic. It’s a plan originally proposed by health officials during the Trump administration but blocked by the former president.
“We will likely be shipping a large number of masks across the country very soon, millions,” Biden said during a panel discussion with black frontline workers. He said the issue of masks became a political issue that took “many, many lives”.
“We could literally have saved many lives if people had listened. We make the use of masks a political statement. If they were in favor of this they would use it, if we were for the other they wouldn’t use it, when in fact it is just basic science, ”Biden said.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request from CNN for additional details.
Studies have shown, and Dr. Anthony Fauci has often pointed out, masks are the most effective way to protect yourself and others from the coronavirus infection that causes covid-19 disease.
“Masks are a two-way street. Masks protect you and me “by preventing the spread of droplets and sprays that may contain the virus,” the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in their guide to mask.
Biden has asked everyone to wear a mask in public and has made it mandatory on federal property. Masks are compulsory in public transport and at airports and transit stations.
Most states and some local governments have some sort of mask mandate, and most retailers require shoppers to wear these in their stores.
Ship face masks to Americans
Earlier this month, White House Secretary General Ron Klain said the Biden administration hopes to revive a proposal by the Trump administration to send masks directly to Americans.
“This was an idea that really popped up in the Trump administration last year – public health authorities recommended it, President Trump vetoed it for some reason,” Klain told NBC’s Lester Holt on Feb. 4. We want to get this back. I hope we can announce some progress in this area in the coming days or next week.
The United States Postal Service (USPS) planned to distribute 650 million masks to the Trump administration last April, according to internal documents reviewed by CNN in September.
A senior government official told The Washington Post at the time that the plan had been scrapped by the White House because some aides feared it might cause “concern or panic.”
Not all masks are the same and it is unclear what type of masks would be shipped. N95’s are the gold standard for face masks because they block 95% of the small and large particles with the help of an electrostatic filter.
Fabric masks have the advantage of being washable and reusable: the more layers the better.
“If you’re wearing a cloth mask, it should be a multi-layer mask so you have multiple potential layers of protection for a single mask,” said CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky recently to CNN’s Anderson Cooper and Sanjay Gupta.
The CDC recently updated its guidelines to suggest wearing a cloth mask over a disposable mask, such as one of those blue surgical masks, as a way to add more protection. New data from the CDC shows that placing a cloth mask over a disposable medical mask can block the escape of 92.5% of potentially infectious particles by creating a tighter fit and eliminating leaks.
Dr. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, recently wore two masks on top of each other.
– CNN’s Theresa Waldrop contributed to this report.