American University began distributing new KN95 masks on campus Monday after learning an initial batch of face coverings handed out by the school recently were counterfeit, officials said.

       The university began its new semester virtually to help mitigate the spread of the omicron variant of the coronavirus, and it resumed in-person classes on Jan. 31. It also set a new masking policy, requiring people to wear N95, KN95 or KF94 masks while indoors, saying those versions “provide the best protection.” The campus set up sites where people could pick up a mask if they have a university ID.

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       On Friday, the Eagle, AU’s student newspaper, reported that the university had unknowingly distributed counterfeit masks during the first week of classes. The staff began investigating after people contacted the newsroom’s social media accounts about “discrepancies in the legitimacy of the masks,” said Clare Mulroy, the Eagle’s editor in chief.

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       University officials examined the masks after hearing concerns from people on campus, and they found the items did not conform to federal guidance, AU’s vice president and chief communications officer, Matthew Bennett, said Monday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says a KN95 should have specific markings that indicate the name of the manufacturer and that the mask meets the required level of protection.

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       AU officials confirmed with the vendor, W.B. Mason, that the initial batch didn’t fit the proper standards, Bennett said. School officials were unable to provide information on the number of masks that were distributed and how much was spent on them. A representative for the vendor could not immediately be reached.

       AU replaced the old masks with a new batch and began distributing those to students Monday, Bennett said. The university’s procurement and health teams visually inspected the new shipment of tens of thousands of masks when they arrived and confirmed the masks met the CDC’s specifications, he said.

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       “It’s a challenging marketplace,” Bennett said. “And as soon as we found out about this problem, we took immediate action and have remedied it very quickly.”

       People were told they could still wear masks from the previous shipment on campus since it had a snug fit around the nose and mouth, but they were asked to pick up the new masks Monday, Bennett said.

       School systems across the country have been seeking to upgrade masks as infections have surged and the CDC has warned that cloth masks offer less protection. But finding authentic KN95s can be tricky; they are unregulated in the United States, and some are counterfeits. State officials in New York recently discovered that 250,000 KN95 masks disseminated to several counties — for schools and libraries, among other places — were counterfeit. They were replaced with “high-quality KN95s,” the state said.

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       Skye Witley, the Eagle’s administration and local news editor, said he compared the masks distributed at campus sites with others he had seen. He noted the campus masks lacked proper markings as outlined by the CDC.

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       “As we looked further into it, we kept noticing more things that just did not really look like they were legitimate masks,” said Witley, a 21-year-old senior who is studying journalism.

       The story reached record levels of engagement on the newspaper’s website, Mulroy said. Students across the campus have been engaged with the story, Witley added.

       Mulroy, also a senior studying journalism, picked up another mask from one of the campus distribution sites Monday morning, she said. The Eagle staff plans to similarly report out on the quality of the new batch.

       “That’s something that we’re looking to do moving forward, just to make sure that these are … legitimate,” said Mulroy, 21.

       Donna St. George contributed to this report.