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Cleveland sock manufacturing plant making free masks for Tennesseans statewide

People in Tennessee can now get free masks from their local health department. Those masks are made at the Renfro Corporation manufacturing plant in Cleveland.

CLEVELAND, Tenn. — People in Tennessee can now get free masks from their local health department. Those masks are made at the Renfro Corporation manufacturing plant in Cleveland. 

The Renfro corporation, a global sock company, has switched over its assembly line to produce masks. They're providing 5 million masks to the state of Tennessee.

"Of those 5 million that were ordered from the state, we've delivered over 1 million of them already, and we'll be continuing over the next few weeks here until we reach that five million," said Stan Jewell, president and CEO of the company.

Jewell said they partnered with Wake Forest Baptist health system to come up with the mask design.

"By working with healthcare officials we learned really quickly ... that comfort is a really key issue to masks," said Jewell. 

Their masks include a nose and a mouth pocket to keep it from getting wet, as well as ties instead of ear loops.

They're also able to produce a lot of them, quickly.

"We're at a rate right now, where we can produce one million per week," said Jewell.

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To supply the whole state, the masks are coming from two manufacturing plants.

"The masks that are supplying Tennessee have joint operations in both Alabama and Tennessee," said Jewell.

They're delivered to a distribution site and then sent to local health departments all over the state. The masks are distributed based on population size.

Jewell says it's a combination of things, not just masks, that will help fight COVID-19.

"Now masking is important, proper sanitation is important and social distancing is important, and when all these things are used together it is very effective," said Jewell.

Anyone who would like a mask should contact their local health department.

This story was originally reported by WRCB.

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