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Democrats reintroduce legislation to mail N95 masks to all Americans. With growing awareness that cloth and surgical masks just aren’t cutting it against COVID-19, people are increasingly advocating for everyone to swap these face coverings for more useful N95 masks—and it’s about time! Perhaps the advice to mask up in any way possible seemed wise at one point, but for a while now it hasn’t been (to echo a popular COVID-era rallying cry) following the science. Research on mask effectiveness now suggests that certain masks—especially the cloth ones many people have been donning—do little more than provide a false sense of security, especially in the face of more transmissible COVID-19 variants like omicron. So it’s great that Democratic leaders are finally acknowledging that the type of mask matters, instead of just instructing people to cover their faces with any old thing. But as with so much of their COVID-19 response, there’s a Goldilocks quality here: Everything is either too little or too much. They’re going from mask agnosticism to planning to mail N95 masks to every American and ordering U.S. companies to make more of these masks. Sens. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.), Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.), and Ron Wyden (D–Ore.) are cosponsoring the Masks for All Act, a measure first introduced in 2020 that would see that everyone in the U.S. is mailed three N95 masks. «This is a crisis and our response must meet the moment,» said Rep. Ro Khanna (D–Calif.), one of more than 30 bill cosponsors in the House. «If we can afford a $778 billion defense budget, we can afford to send N95 masks to every American to keep people safe as Omicron cases spike.» But three masks are hardly going to last people very long, especially if they work in public-facing places or are otherwise often in situations with a high risk of transmission. If someone can’t afford or can’t find N95 masks, the three from the government won’t make much of a difference in the long run. At the same time, some people will not wear masks even if free ones are sent to their homes. And others already have plenty of N95 masks around and/or can easily afford to buy their own. What sense does it make to give masks to these people? Any mask provision plan driven by the federal government is going to be clunky, and getting masks to those who truly need them could probably be better done by private actors or local governments. But if members of Congress insist, then why not at least focus on providing masks where they can make the most impact, instead of wasting masks on folks who won’t wear or don’t need them while offering a very limited number to those who do? Not only is mailing masks to everyone a waste of money and resources, but it could exacerbate mask supply issues (something the lawmakers would attempt to get around by invoking the Defense Production Act to order companies to make more masks).
