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I think that the fear was of a mask shortage. Infected quarantined > Potentially Infected COVID-19 contacts wearing masks > Uninfected wearing masks.

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Can someone shed some light on the difficulties of producing the "simple" surgical masks? I'm not talking about something that filters the incoming air, but the lame kind that just reduces the amount of liquids you disperse when breathing, coughing, sneezing etc.

Are they so high tech you can't just ramp up production? And how many months in advance would you need to ramp it up? We're about 3 months in and nobody got the idea to increase production of masks until about a week ago (similar for hand sanitizer, soaps etc)? What am I missing, why is that a thing?

Demand is probably relatively (to other products) stable, why would you have been running a factory with unused capacity available to ramp up into for years ?

I read about a hand sanitiser manufacturer ramping up in the UK; by increasing hours, not throughput. And obviously to increase hours you need more staff, training, and maybe to review some policies, local bylaws, and other procedural stuff.

My assumption: They're made in China. Where everything is shut down.

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