New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city will distribute 7.5 million face coverings for free at different locations across the five boroughs.

New York will distribute 7.5 million protective masks citywide to help residents comply with a state order requiring face coverings in public during the COVID-19 pandemic, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday. 

The masks will be distributed free of charge at parks, public housing facilities, grocery stores, schools participating in the Grab-and-Go meal program and other sites. 

“Wherever you turn, you will be offered a free face covering,” de Blasio said at his daily coronavirus briefing.

The mayor also said Monday  the city’s beaches will not open on Memorial Day, as they traditionally do. In mid-April, de Blasio said pools and beaches would likely remain closed for the summer because of budget cuts and coronavirus fears. 

He said the city has obtained personal protective equipment from American companies as well as international manufacturers. New York City officials have also worked with local companies to manufacture PPE.

Hopes are that the city will have a 90-day supply of protective equipment for a possible coronavirus boomerang if social distancing restrictions ease this summer, or for a second wave of the infections in the fall and winter.

Fourth of July festivities will go on, de Blasio added, although plans are still being drawn up.

“There will be a celebration,” de Blasio said, “and fireworks will play a role.” 

On the free masks, de Blasio said five million will be comprised of three-ply nonmedical paper designed for multiple use. The remaining 2.5 million masks will be made of cloth. 

“When you put on a face covering you are reducing the spread of this disease and taking one small step toward normalcy,” he said. 

For the first time since March, the city has enough surgical gowns, face shields, N95 masks and other PPE to get through the week, de Blasio said. In March, the mayor said he feared the city would run out of vital supplies by April 5.

“It is striking, the largest city in the country, the greatest country in the world, and yet this is the first week in a couple of months that we have been able to say we have a solid week ahead of everything,” de Blasio said Monday.

De Blasio, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and officials in other states have compared the PPE market to the “Wild West" as local leaders bid against the federal government and each other for vital and increasingly expensive health care equipment. Those officials have called on the Trump Administration to invoke the Defense Production Act to streamline the supply chain. 

“We are going to have our own reserves that we control, ready at all times to protect our people,” de Blasio said. " … We will buy the supplies from all over the country, all over the world whenever they are available but we will increasingly have the ability to build them right here in New York City." 

De Blasio said officials will send PPE to the city’s hard-hit nursing homes, including 1.9 million masks, 170,000 face shields and 173,000 gowns. 

 


 

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