US to distribute 25 million masks for protection against coronavirus

US President Joe Biden's administration will distribute 25 million masks starting next month.

White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Jeff Zients said Wednesday "In the month of March, we will begin to deliver millions of masks to food banks and community health centres around the country.''

"We will deliver more than 25 million masks across the country, these masks will be available in more than 1300 community health centres, and 60,000 food pantries nationwide.

Zients also said that the Biden administration is anticipating the distribution of at least three million doses of Johnson & Johnson's Covid-19 vaccine should it receive emergency use authorization (EUA).

Around 44.5 million people in the United States had received at least one dose of two-shot vaccines developed by Pfizer and BioNTech or Moderna, as of Tuesday morning as the Biden administration tries to accelerate an unprecedented campaign to vaccinate most American adults.

About 19 per cent of total global coronavirus deaths have occurred in the United States, an outsized figure given that the nation accounts for just 4 per cent of the world’s population.

The country has the highest overall death figure, reflecting the lack of a unified, national response last year, when the administration of former President Donald Trump mostly left states to their own devices in tackling the greatest public health crisis in a century. 

Biden, a Democrat, took office on Jan. 20 after defeating Trump, a Republican, in the 2020 presidential election, in part by arguing he would do a better job of addressing the pandemic.

Trump downplayed the pandemic in its early stages and repeatedly predicted rosier numbers about the expected death toll in the United States than came to fruition.