Schiff, Khanna call for free masks for all Americans in coronavirus aid package

California Democratic Reps. Adam Schiff and Ro Khanna on Tuesday urged congressional leaders to provide for distributing free masks to all Americans as part of the coronavirus aid package that’s currently being negotiated.

In a letter to the leaders of both parties in the House and Senate, Schiff and Khanna called for provisions in the aid package that would promote widespread mask use, including sending free masks to all via mail as well as funding for a public service announcement campaign by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and research on masks’ efficacy.

“While nothing short of a vaccine or a cure can truly end the threat of this virus, we must aggressively pursue simple and affordable courses of action that can mitigate infections and save tens of thousands of lives. Relative to the billions of dollars that we spent on critical steps like testing and contact tracing and the trillions that we spent on economic relief, masks are a low-cost intervention,” Schiff and Khanna wrote.

Democratic leaders and Trump administration officials said Tuesday that they are aiming to reach a deal on the next coronavirus aid package by the end of this week, following more than two weeks of slow-moving talks. Enhanced unemployment benefits that provided recipients an extra $600 per week already expired at the end of July. 

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told reporters after a closed-door meeting with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday said they were not yet close to a deal, but said: “We did try to agree to set a timeline that we’re going to try to reach an overall agreement if we can get one by the end of this week, so that the legislation could be then passed next week.”

Schiff and Khanna have both introduced bills that would provide free masks to Americans to help encourage widespread use. Schiff’s bill would order the Department of Health and Human Services to create a program to provide free cloth face masks to anyone who requests one via the U.S. Postal Service, while a similar bill that Khanna introduced with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) would also allow the masks to be picked up at locations like pharmacies, schools, COVID-19 testing sites and post offices.

The bill from Khanna and Sanders would allocate $5 billion to produce and distribute masks, while Schiff’s would authorize $25 million for the National Institutes of Health research on facial coverings’ effectiveness in reducing the spread of the coronavirus.

More than half of U.S. states have mandated the use of facial coverings when people are out in public. President Trump, however, has said he doesn’t intend to issue a national mask mandate and prefers to leave it up to state and local governments. 

Trump began urging Americans to wear masks last month after previously resisting wearing a mask in public and mocking others, like former Vice President Joe Biden, who did follow the recommendation first issued by the CDC in April to help limit the spread of viral droplets.

Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, said at a Senate hearing in June that he would support distributing masks for free to encourage more widespread use.

“There’s no doubt that wearing masks protects you and gets you to be protected. So it’s people protecting each other. Anything that furthers the use of masks, whether it’s giving out free masks or any other mechanism, I am thoroughly in favor of,” Fauci said.