Afew months ago, the CDC formally recommended that all Americans wear cloth face coverings in public settings where social distancing measures are difficult to maintain, including grocery stores, pharmacies, and other high-traffic places where people might be going in and out to stock up on household essentials. Crucially, the cloth face coverings the CDC recommends wearing are not surgical masks or N95 respirators—the agency has made it extremely clear that those supplies should still be reserved for healthcare professionals and first responders, those on the front lines of combatting the spread of the virus day in and day out.

As the spread of COVID-19 continues at pandemic-level proportions, key players in the fashion industry are getting involved to do their part, from funding efforts to fight the virus to converting manufacturing facilities to better suit the needs of hospitals and healthcare workers around the world. And now, some brands are going a step further by starting to make non-surgical masks in line with the CDC's recent recommendation. Manufacturing surgical masks according to the CDC's guidelines represents a particular type of problem for brands that lack access to the technical materials necessary or don't have the production know-how to make medical-grade PPE. But non-surgical masks (part of what the CDC would categorize as "cloth face coverings" per its memo) are a far more approachable task to tackle, especially if the only fabric a brand has easy access to is cotton or a similarly common material.

Here it's especially important to note that an overwhelming amount of recent research indicates wearing a face mask is highly effective in reducing the spread of respiratory droplets linked to the transmission of the virus, particularly when maintaining proper distancing measures is otherwise difficult. So with that in mind, we've compiled a regularly-updated list of all the places you can buy a face mask right now to help you and your loved ones mask up with ease. Stay safe out there and keep those masks on, folks.

To help those in need due to the coronavirus outbreak, check out our guide on where to donate here.