Washington, Jan 20 (TIWN) US President Joe Biden's administration will start shipping 400 million free non-surgical N95 face masks to distribution sites nationwide this week as part of efforts to fight the Omicron-fuelled Covid-19 resurgence, a media report said.

Americans will be able to pick up their masks at one of "tens of thousands" of pharmacies, thousands of community centres and other locations across the country, beginning late next week, Xinhua news agency quoted the USA Today report as saying on Wednesday.  As Omicron cases have been overwhelming across the country, Biden is facing criticism over his ability to contain the pandemic, noted the newspaper, adding that the White House expects the program to be fully up and running by early February.