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The mayor of Los Angeles urged 4 million residents to wear masks to combat the coronavirus when they walk out in public, even as state health officials shied away from requiring a coverup. Homemade cloth masks, or even a “tucked-in bandanna,” will help reduce the spread of the COVID-19 virus in the nation’s second-largest city and remind people to practice safe social distancing, Mayor Eric Garcetti said Wednesday as he donned a black cloth mask to make his point. (Jablon, 4/2)

Riverside County released the new mask guidance Tuesday, covering such essential tasks as grocery shopping and medical visits. “The face coverings do not have to be hospital grade but need to cover the nose and mouth. For example, bandannas, fabric masks and neck gaiters are acceptable. Fabric covers and bandannas can be washed and used again,” the county said. (Money and Brown, 4/1)

President Donald Trump on Wednesday recommended wearing a scarf over the face to prevent the spread of coronavirus, even though the efficacy of such a measure remains unknown. Trump was asked during his daily news briefing whether he felt the public should be wearing masks when protective gear was in short supply for health care workers. The president responded that it wouldn’t hurt for the public to wear masks, but that scarves could be a perfectly suitable substitute if the wearing of masks en masse took them away from health care workers. (Choi, 4/1)

Police, firefighters and corrections officers are urging President Donald Trump to use his emergency authority to get them gloves and masks because scarce rations of protective gear are mostly going to health care workers. The first responders are the latest group to push Trump to invoke the Defense Production Act, the Korean War-era law that gives the president the power to control distribution and force companies to prioritize the federal government’s orders. Governors and public health officials have been pleading with Trump to use the act to stop bidding wars between states amid the dire shortages of safety gear, but the president has so far only sparingly invoked it. (Ehley and Goldberg, 4/1)

Home Depot has ordered all 2,300 of its stores in North America to stop sales of N95 masks to try to free them up for those on the front lines of the coronavirus emergency response, the company said on Wednesday. The announcement came on the same day that President Trump said that the federal government’s stockpile of personal protective equipment had nearly been depleted by the states. (Vigdor, 4/1)