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Comment by taiwanboy | Hacker News Reader

Nope that’s not it. Do you see China running out of masks right now? No of course not. They have so much they are “donating” to other countries. They have the world’s capability to make masks.

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Exactly, and the USA DOESNT because it chooses not to but can if it wishes, because money. You seem to be proving OP's point.

The U.S. is out of masks because the shelves were cleared in January and February by people buying for relatives back in China, and by local Chinese associations bulk buying and sending them there.

I have family in China. I watched this happen. I saw emails and chat posts organizing donations.

This is getting back to OP's point too, if the US government had actually prepared for this, there would be a stock of these types of items in a government DR warehouse somewhere not available to the public, but ready to be shipped around the USA when needed.

The thread's point is that the other way the US government could have prepared for this would have been to prevent the offshoring of mask production (and other national-security related items), thus keeping the necessary production capacity here instead of in China.

Offshoring isn't the issue, the issue is the GOP wanting to decimate all public health infrastructure and let companies step in and make money off of it instead. The capacity could be here if the USG wanted to make it a priority but it isn't a moneymaker so they are not.

The issue is that you either need a strategic stockpile OR domestic production capabilities, and ideally both. You seem to be ignoring the latter entirely.

(And it was Obama that depleted the strategic stockpile of N95 masks without replenishing them - a stockpile created by Republicans, mind. If you want to point fingers, please point them in the right direction)

They have been "donating" simply to get headlines so the American people complain until Trump apologizes for calling it a "Chinese virus", then China will agree to sell the US masks and price gouge the US. Trump apologized last night and wouldn't you know it, Beijing gave manufactures the go ahead to contact various State and City governments to start price wars internally.

You are correct, China has the capacity to manufacture and supply the masks, but they haven't because they are politicizing this and otherwise price gouging. What they don't realize what they are actually doing is lending legitimacy to the Chinese-made virus conspiracy theories by doing these things...this will back fire against China in a very big way.

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