A top US health official said the US needs at least 300 million face masks to fight the coronavirus.
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said at a Senate subcommittee meeting that the US has a stockpile of 30 million N95 masks but it needs at least 270 million more for healthcare workers as the country braces for the spread of the COVID-19 virus.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the prevalence of the disease could worsen and that it "might be bad."
The Trump administration sent a request to Congress for a $2.5 billion coronavirus-relief fund for vaccine development, protective equipment, and other response measures. The coronavirus budget would include a $1.8 billion boost to an existing $535 million from the Ebola response budget.
The CDC doesn't recommend that the general public use masks, but they do advise healthcare workers to use them
N95 respirators are not the most effective way for average people to protect themselves from the virus — the face masks can prevent wearers from breathing in particles as small as 0.3 microns, but coronavirus particles measure between 0.05 and 0.2 microns in diameter, according to a recent article in The Lancet.
However, masks are crucial in healthcare settings, both to protect medical workers and to keep doctors and nurses from spreading germs to vulnerable patients. People who have symptoms of the coronavirus or have recently been in contact with others who might be sick should also wear masks to prevent the spread of their own germs.
Trump is facing bipartisan backlash for his proposed coronavirus budget, with Democrats and some Republicans calling the allocation "inadequate." He defended his budget on Tuesday, tweeting, "If the virus disappeared tomorrow, they would say we did a really poor, and even incompetent, job."
In China — the epicenter of the disease — medical workers have been working under extreme conditions; about 3,000 healthcare workers have been infected, and at least eight have died.
The coronavirus has infected 57 Americans as of Tuesday, with over 81,000 confirmed cases worldwide. Over 2,700 people have died from the disease, with China accounting for most of the deaths.
- Read more:
- People are racing to buy face masks amid the coronavirus outbreak, but they probably won't protect you from illness
- More than 3,000 Chinese healthcare workers have gotten the coronavirus, and 8 have died. A study found that 29% of infections were in medical staff.
- Thousands of Chinese doctors volunteered for the frontline of the coronavirus outbreak. They are overwhelmed, under-equipped, exhausted, and even dying.
- Chinese doctors released chest scans of a 33-year-old coronavirus patient that show what the illness looks like in her lungs
