Camden officials distribute KN95 masks, as slow rollout of free masks nationwide begins

CAMDEN, N.J. - Thousands of KN95 masks, recently donated by Cooper University Hospital, were given out in Camden County Wednesday, by city officials, in an effort to help halt the spread of COVID-19.

Last month, the U.S. Government announced it would be handing out 400 million N95 masks to everyone in the country and those masks have started to appear in some stores. The program is called the Federal Retail Pharmacy Program and a number of pharmacies and stores have partnered with the federal government to hand out the masks including, CVS, Walgreens, Meijer and many others.

A complete list of participating stores can be found on the CDC website.

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CVS spokesperson Tara Burke says that masks are currently arriving in stores, though at a slower pace than they would like. In a statement, she explained:

"Inventory has begun arriving at these locations and will continue on a rolling basis as additional supply becomes available." 

Walgreens has a list of stores that currently have masks for distribution.

The Mayor of Camden, Victor Carstarphen and Camden County Commissioner Al Dyer, also did their part in getting KN95 masks out to students and residents when they helped hand out free masks at Camden High School.

"These are really, really good masks. This is the top of the line of what they’ve been talking about around the country, we’re blessed to have so many thousands of masks come to us," Mayor Carstarphen stated.

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