The Biden administration will announce on Wednesday a plan to distribute hundreds of millions of free, high-quality masks through pharmacies and community sites, three people with knowledge of the matter told Politico.
The masks will be N95s that are sourced from the government's Strategic National Stockpile, the sources said, as part of an effort to ensure Americans can access the more-protective masks during a record surge of COVID-19 cases.
The initiative 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 have 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.
The White House declined to comment on the report.
According to Politico, the plan is expected to lean heavily on pharmacies — which have become an integral part of the administration's vaccination campaign — to also distribute the N95s at no cost.
President Joe Biden last week signaled that the administration planned to distribute masks for free, acknowledging that for some individuals, obtaining high-quality masks is "not always affordable or convenient."
On Wednesday, the President is also slated to hold a press conference where he's expected to tout the administration's efforts to tamp down the Omicron surge and make COVID-19 tests and masks more widely available.