Washington Post: WH nixed plan to distribute 650
million face masks through USPS
By Paul
P. Murphy and Devan
Cole, CNN
Updated 10:09 AM ET,
Sun September 20, 2020
Washington (CNN)The United States Postal Service had
planned to distribute 650 million face coverings for the Trump administration
in April to help curb the spread of the coronavirus,
according to newly obtained internal documents reviewed by CNN.
But those plans were scrapped by the White House
because it didn't want to spark "concern or panic" among Americans,
senior administration officials told The Washington Post.
"There was concern from some in the White
House Domestic Policy Council and the office of the vice president that households
receiving masks might create concern or panic," one administration
official told the Post.
The documents obtained by the transparency
group American Oversight show the Postal
Service was doing this in partnership with the White House Coronavirus Task
Force, the Department of Health and Human Services and "a consortium of
textile manufacturers."
When reached by CNN, the White House declined
to comment.
USPS was planning to ship the masks in April
and was going to prioritize areas "which HHS has identified as
experiencing high transmission rates of Covid-19," according to a draft
USPS release. Louisiana's Orleans and Jefferson parishes were going to be sent
masks first, followed by King County, Washington; Wayne County, Michigan; and
New York.
The scrapped plan provides a fresh look at how
the White House was racing to fight the pandemic as it took hold in the US, and
it adds to a growing list of steps the
administration didn't take earlier this year that may have
helped slow the rapidly spreading virus.
The Post noted that at the time, the US
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention "had been working on
coronavirus guidance that recommended face coverings, a
reversal of its previous position, in the face of mounting evidence that people
could spread the coronavirus without experiencing symptoms."
"The Postal Service will utilize its
unrivaled distribution network to deliver the face coverings. Letter carriers,
rural carriers and others will deliver one pack of five face coverings to each
residential delivery point and PO Box," the draft USPS release read.
"The packs will arrive labeled with a generic Postal Service barcode, not
a specific address, and will include HHS instructions on proper use."
The Post said that in place of the planned
effort to widely distribute masks, "HHS created Project America Strong, a
$675 million effort to distribute 'reusable cotton face masks to critical
infrastructure sectors, companies, healthcare facilities, and faith-based and
community organizations across the country.'"
A spokesman for the department told the
newspaper that "about 600 million of the 650 million masks ordered have
been distributed ... including 125 million set aside for schools."
CNN's Betsy Klein
contributed to this report.
