File photo taken on May 17, 2021 shows a woman wearing a KN95 face mask at a restaurant in San Mateo, California, the United States. (Xinhua/Wu Xiaoling)
NEW YORK, Jan. 19 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Joe Biden's administration will start shipping 400 million free non-surgical N95 face masks to distribution sites nationwide this week as part of efforts to fight the surging Omicron COVID-19 variant, USA Today on Wednesday quoted an official source as saying.
Americans will be able to pick up their masks at one of "tens of thousands" of pharmacies, thousands of community centers and other locations across the country, beginning late next week, according to the report.
As Omicron cases have been overwhelming across the country, Biden is facing criticism over his ability to contain the pandemic, noted the newspaper, adding that the White House expects the program to be fully up and running by early February.
HOME TESTS
The Biden administration's new website allowing people to order up to four free at-home coronavirus tests quietly went live on Tuesday, a day in advance of its formal launch, and demand already appeared to be significant.
A combined total of more than 1 million visitors were on the home page and the ordering page of covidtests.gov at one point Tuesday evening, more than 40 times as many as were on the government site with the next highest traffic, the U.S. Postal Service's package-tracking page, according to official data.
The test-and-mask moves show that the Biden administration "is trying to step up its coronavirus response as the highly infectious Omicron variant drives a spike in cases across the nation," reported The New York Times, noting that the administration at first resisted the idea of sending tests to Americans' homes.
STRICTER TRAVEL ADVISORY
On Tuesday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) moved a whopping 22 destinations into its highest-risk travel category for COVID-19. Adding to the impact, the CDC also moved 22 additional destinations to its Level 3 category, which is considered "high" risk for COVID-19.
By contrast, it moved only two nations to Level 4, or "very high" risk, last week. This week, among the nations moved to Level 4 were Argentina and Australia, which have maintained some of the strictest border controls during most of the pandemic. Level 2 and 1 respectively mean "COVID-19 Moderate" and "COVID-19 Low."
The CDC advises travelers to avoid travel to Level 4 destinations, where more than 500 cases per 100,000 residents have been registered in the past 28 days. In its broader travel guidance, the CDC has recommended avoiding all international travel until fully vaccinated.
PANDEMIC SURGE
As of Tuesday, more than 66,000,000 COVID-19 cases were reported across the United States, which is about one fifth of the U.S. population, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
In addition, over 851,000 COVID-19 deaths have been reported in the country so far, according to the latest CDC data, adding that nearly 800,000 new cases and nearly 1,800 new deaths are now recorded on a daily basis, up significantly week by week.
Meanwhile, nearly 9.5 million children in the United States have tested positive for COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic, and child COVID-19 cases have "spiked dramatically" across the country, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children's Hospital Association. ■
File photo taken on April 21, 2021 shows a man wearing a N95 face mask on a street in San Mateo, California, the United States. (Xinhua/Wu Xiaoling)
File photo taken on April 26, 2021 shows a man wearing a KN95 face mask on a street in San Mateo, California, the United States. (Xinhua/Wu Xiaoling)
File photo taken on April 11, 2021 shows a man wearing a KN95 face mask with children at a train station in San Mateo, California, the United States.(Xinhua/Wu Xiaoling)
File photo taken on July 17, 2021 shows a woman wearing a N95 face mask on a street in San Francisco, California, the United States. (Xinhua/Wu Xiaoling)
