> 6 months or more to build, by which time there may be no demand
Until the next pandemic. We can spend hundreds of billions on national defense, but N95 mask machines for protection in a pandemic is where we draw the line?
Until the next pandemic. We can spend hundreds of billions on national defense, but N95 mask machines for protection in a pandemic is where we draw the line?
Or we could allocate money to PPE and instead spend it on defense:
"Pentagon used taxpayer money meant for masks and swabs to make jet engine parts and body armor"
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/09/22/covid-fun...
This is just like the bailout money. No meaningful way to control how it's spent, that's why AIG all got golden parachutes. It's a body of dumb people making decisions in haste at best, or entirely corrupt (my vote).
It's September. We (the informed public) knew that the pandemic was likely going to be a major problem at this time in February, which is 7 months ago. The government probably knew a month before that.
We've already had a lot more than 6 months. And I really suspect it could be done faster in an emergency situation where you can pay all the workers overtime.
You have to assume that every country on the planet, not just the US, has the same problem you're ascribing to the US. That they could just order new production capacity into existence, but they are choosing not to.
I'd say by pragmatic measures, we're more likely to use our guns than to come across a pandemic like what we're seeing today.
And yeah, we had pandemic scares: H1N1 (aka: Spanish Flu part 2), The 1960s flu, Ebola. But none of them them really were an issue to this degree.
Perhaps we use the guns more because we have them available.
I think my general point is that our N95 mask production is enough, so long as we save masks and replenish the stockpile. Given the hundred years of pandemics, this COVID19 one is the worst since the 1918 flu by pretty much all measures. Its your canonical black-swan event.
> Perhaps we use the guns more because we have them available.
Did we run out of masks during H1N1, Avian Flu, Ebola, SARS, or any other pandemic before COVID19 ?
Its been years since those examples, so maybe I don't remember exactly. H1N1 was a big deal, but it wasn't "hospitals ran out of equipment" big deal from my memory.
> the H1N1 flu epidemic depleted 85 million N95s from the national stockpile — and the supply was never replenished. In 2013, 2014, 2016 and 2017, public health officials published alarming reports warning of a “massive gap” in what remained.
COVID-19 is not a black swan.
> “The Black Swan” was meant to explain why, in a networked world, we need to change business practices and social norms—not, as he recently told me, to provide “a cliché for any bad thing that surprises us.” Besides, the pandemic was wholly predictable—he, like Bill Gates, Laurie Garrett, and others, had predicted it—a white swan if ever there was one. “We issued our warning that, effectively, you should kill it in the egg,” Taleb told Bloomberg. Governments “did not want to spend pennies in January; now they are going to spend trillions.”
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-pandemic-is...
The mask shortage isn't even a black swan, it was both predictable and predicted.
> The trade group for manufacturers of personal protective equipment in mid-2009 urged “immediate action” to restock N95 masks. The International Safety Equipment Association warned of “significant shortages” if another pandemic caused demand for masks to surge.
> A nonprofit representing public health agencies, the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO), echoed industry’s appeal in a 2010 report funded by the federal government, recommending the repository of masks be “replenished for future events.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/face-masks-in-...
Yes.
Every single year when the wildfires torch California N95 masks become unobtainable for a couple of weeks. Having a larger supply and/or back stock available would make a difference. It's clear that planning is needed, but production also needs to increase to allow for stockpiling.
You also talk about a "black-swan event" for something that was foreseeable and somewhat predictable. Just like flooding and earthquakes, pandemics come in cycles and we were due for one any time. It also means it'll happen again, so maybe we should be ready.
That hasn't affected the National N95 stockpile until this year.
Maybe California should build their own N95 stockpile, at least if these fires keep happening more regularly.
There's 60 year old AKs in use in Iraq and Afghanistan, though