What if they'd invoked the defense production act to actually crank out enough of the things?
Or told everyone to make them, like the Czech republic did?
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/04/04/czech-gove...
Or told everyone to make them, like the Czech republic did?
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/04/04/czech-gove...
Government concerned about shortages + wasted N95 masks by untrained public -> recommendation against the public wearing masks -> additional evidence for airborne & asymptomatic transmission / opportunity to ramp mask production -> "I heard we recommended against the public wearing masks, so I guess we don't need to do that"
To be fair, there are tons of valid reasons not to allocate scarce masks to the general public (economic panic, inability to properly fit test, inability to properly wear, no decon procedures or facilities, likelihood of proximity to Covid-positive patient). But unfortunately, it seems like the actual rationale (and suggestions it would have for subsequent action) got lost in the simplification, even on the government itself.
turns out it makes no difference how many you crank out, what you lock down and when
the examples that we should do this or that are pointless,
everyone will run the same fate as Sweden, lots of cases, the epidemic runs it course, then it is over
Source: am Czech.