Many U.S. residents will be able to find free masks at local retailers, pharmacies, and community health centers over the next few weeks following the federal government’s deployment of 400 million N95 masks to the general public from the Strategic National Stockpile. Two days after the Biden administration launched the program on Jan. 19, large retailers such as Hy-Vee, Walmart, and Meijer made the N95 masks available online, according to Jeffrey Zients, White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator, at a Jan. 26 teleconference. “Americans will be able to pick up free masks, as I said earlier, at tens of thousands of convenient sites, including, as you mentioned, community health centers around the country and local pharmacies,” Zients said, adding that the program will hit full strength “across the next couple of weeks.” The announcement came after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated masking recommendations by encouraging Americans to wear medical-grade N95 or …