Better masks for children will soon be easier to find, White House says. Here’s why

Efforts to expand access to masks will soon direct more of its focus to children, White House officials said in a Feb. 16 briefing.

Dr. Tom Inglesby, senior adviser to the White House COVID-19 Response Team, said that 230 million adult masks have already been distributed to pharmacies and community centers and are free.

“We are now in the process of planning for the distribution of masks for children,” Inglesby said. “We’ll have more to say about that in the days ahead. But there’s a commitment to do that, and there’s a process underway, certainly, for all adults to get masks now for free at pharmacies and community health clinics across the country.”

The federal government began distributing the free N95 masks to pharmacies and community health centers in January, a move that White House coronavirus response coordinator Jeff Zients called “the largest deployment of personal protective equipment in U.S. history,” USA Today reported.

The White House has not yet announced what kind of masks will be distributed for children, but finding effective masks that fit small faces properly can be challenging, McClatchy News reported.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says that N95 masks are not recommended for children, as a proper fit cannot be achieved on a child’s face.

And parents should be wary of brands that claim to carry N95s for children — they’re most likely counterfeit and therefore ineffective, SFGATE reported.

However, children can wear KN95 masks, especially ones specifically designed for kids, McClatchy News reported.

Children can also wear three-ply masks, though some experts, like NBC News medical correspondent Dr. John Torres, suggest that children wear a cloth mask over a disposable one to increase protection.

The White House announcement comes after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its guidance in January to suggest that those over the age of 2 years old should wear “the most protective mask you can that fits well and you will wear consistently.”

However, the announcement also comes on the heels of states all over the country lifting mask mandates. As of Feb. 15, seven states had dropped business mask mandates, 37 did not have a mask mandate, and only 6 still required masks “in some or all situations for vaccinated and unvaccinated people,” NBC News reported.

That change occurred despite the CDC’s continued guidance that masks be worn indoors in places with substantial or high levels of COVID transmission — or in almost 99% of counties in the U.S.

This story was originally published February 17, 2022 at 1:10 PM with the headline "Better masks for children will soon be easier to find, White House says. Here’s why."