Doctors Say Shortage of Protective Gear Is Dire • Hacker News Board

Re: Doctors Say Shortage of Protective Gear Is Dire

#31

Post by jeremydw » Fri, Mar 20, 2020, 5:21 AM UTC

atomic_rabbit wrote: post #29

jeremydw wrote: post #13

I keep seeing articles like this pop up. During one of the first coronavirus press conferences, the White House invited CEOs from Walmart, Target, CVS, etc. – presumably to show strength of the private sector. On the flip side, why can't we enlist money and resources from the private sector to quickly fix some of these supply issues? For example: - Convert car factories to produce masks and ventilators. - Convert con…

Turns out N95 masks are quite high-tech, and even China is having trouble scaling up its production. They're made of a material, meltblown fabric, which only a limited number of factories are capable of producing. https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/16/8149292...

IDK. I get that it's a hard problem, but it's a solvable one. It's not like it's some equation or law of science that needs to be discovered. It can be solved with money and effort. :\ I get the economics don't work out in normal times for a reserve like this, but that's exactly what an insurance policy (i.e. a federal reserve of medical supplies) is for.

It's just like nukes. We have a stockpile of them that are maintained... nukes are very hard to produce... etc. etc.

Re: Doctors Say Shortage of Protective Gear Is Dire

#32

Post by Aeolun » Fri, Mar 20, 2020, 5:21 AM UTC

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #23

quietthrow wrote: post #18

Again severe failure on the govt’s part. Their inaction in when it was needed the most led to all these circumstances that makes it ripe for situations like these. As the number of infections spread and economic situation get worse these kind of things will get really really bad. Once the second and third order effects kick in it’s going to be a catastrophe. And our leaders answer to all of this is to give $1200 chec…

> Again severe failure on the govt’s part. If you live in a democracy, then you are part of the government. You can't just blame other people for this.

Depends on who you voted for. 49% of the people that voted are in a perfect position to blame others.

Not that I think it would have really mattered. All the western countries were struck by surprise it seems, even though they had months to prepare.

Re: Doctors Say Shortage of Protective Gear Is Dire

#33

Post by jumelles » Fri, Mar 20, 2020, 5:25 AM UTC

rhegart wrote: post #19

outlace wrote: post #9

There is reason to believe that the hospital mask shortage is due in no small part to employee (and patient/family) theft of masks and not necessarily due to dramatically increased need at hospitals (at least not yet). I say this as a resident physician at an urban hospital in the US. We're now severely low on N95 masks and moderately low on surgical masks but we have only had less than a dozen confirmed covid-19 cas…

This. There are barely any covid 19 patients yet hospitals are low on masks due to panic. Beds are still open and ventilators contrary to media claims are not currently on a shortage.

Yet.

Re: Doctors Say Shortage of Protective Gear Is Dire

#34

Post by lettergram » Fri, Mar 20, 2020, 5:26 AM UTC

The crazy thing to me is the government or hospitals haven’t issued a massive n95 drive to obtain more.

I have a few left over from a house project I did a while back. Kept one for myself, but happy to donate the other 4 I have. I’m sure if the request was actually made people would donate. Is it enough? No idea, but construction workers, painters, etc don’t need them right now.

People want to do something, let them.

Re: Doctors Say Shortage of Protective Gear Is Dire

#35

Post by grej » Fri, Mar 20, 2020, 5:27 AM UTC

quietthrow wrote: post #18

Again severe failure on the govt’s part. Their inaction in when it was needed the most led to all these circumstances that makes it ripe for situations like these. As the number of infections spread and economic situation get worse these kind of things will get really really bad. Once the second and third order effects kick in it’s going to be a catastrophe. And our leaders answer to all of this is to give $1200 chec…

"why they are not fired and instead have to wait till next election."

Because we still have laws, and elections. What do you want a military coup?

Re: Doctors Say Shortage of Protective Gear Is Dire

#36

Post by jumelles » Fri, Mar 20, 2020, 5:28 AM UTC

jeremydw wrote: post #13

I keep seeing articles like this pop up. During one of the first coronavirus press conferences, the White House invited CEOs from Walmart, Target, CVS, etc. – presumably to show strength of the private sector. On the flip side, why can't we enlist money and resources from the private sector to quickly fix some of these supply issues? For example: - Convert car factories to produce masks and ventilators. - Convert con…

Trump is inexplicably balking at actually using the Defense Production Act: https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/488526-frustration-mou...

> But in a subsequent tweet on Wednesday evening, Trump indicated that even though he invoked the act, he is in no rush to use it.

> "I only signed the Defense Production Act to combat the Chinese Virus should we need to invoke it in a worst- case scenario in the future," he said. "Hopefully there will be no need, but we are all in this TOGETHER!"

Re: Doctors Say Shortage of Protective Gear Is Dire

#37

Post by m3nu » Fri, Mar 20, 2020, 5:28 AM UTC

I do China sourcing and have decent access to 3-ply surgical masks and limited access to N95 masks.

It's really hard to sell either of those to government bodies, even near cost. Already talked to the Red Cross, wholesale pharmacies and different ministries. They generally insist on payment on delivery, which we can't do for larger orders, as factories sell to whoever has the cash at the factory gate.

Some also want EU certifications (FFP2), while many factories in China only have the local Chinese standard (KN95). And some refuse to pay to a company outside Europa, while wanting to buy stuff from China.

So while I'd love to ship some of this stuff to Europe, currently people there are still blocking themselves. Hoping to work something out soon.

Re: Doctors Say Shortage of Protective Gear Is Dire

#38

Post by viraptor » Fri, Mar 20, 2020, 5:31 AM UTC

aaron695 wrote: post #10

If this article was dated January I might care. Everyone in the hospitals from nurses to management knew exactly what is coming but did nothing. And nothing has even happened yet, wait till the virus actually arrives in a few weeks. Did any hospital plan or ask for help properly? Did any nurses union raise the issue? Anyway they have numerous studies from Africa where they can't afford equipment, rather than the lack…

Nurses and other staff are not there to make decisions based on firsthand geopolitical and epidemiology research. They have enough day-to-day work to do. This information should be provided to hospitals and other healthcare workers from higher up. This level of resource use / need may be even above what the local management should analyse, because ideally there would be regional stock available to shift to the clinics/hospitals affected by most cases.

Re: Doctors Say Shortage of Protective Gear Is Dire

#39

Post by systemvoltage » Fri, Mar 20, 2020, 5:33 AM UTC

Let this be a lesson to learn for western democracies to not put all of their eggs in one basket. Diversification, localization and strategic globalization of the supply chain should be at the forefront of the issues to be discussed, ratified and acted upon after this pandemic is over. When one country manufactures 90% of world's goods (not accurate, to make a point), while the top 1% gets their bonuses for increasing profit margins, this is what we have. We've lost skills, we've lost our stance to manufacture things in our own homeland. It is depressing, deeply worrying and feels like the entire world has been gutted out by one country. Just to make it clear - think about this scenario - what would happen if one country made the food for the rest of the world? (Thankfully, we don't, but it can happen). What about pharmaceuticals? (Unfortunately, 90% of the world's generic drugs are made in Asia, primarily in India who in turn depends on China) [1].

[1] China is the world's largest raw materials exporter for Drugs: https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-opens-door-to-foreign-dru...

Edit: I just realized that some of the startup and entrepreneurs around the world are on this forum, if you'd like to get into manufacturing, want to learn about more abstract concepts of manufacturing, I implore you to checkout: Manufacturing Planning and Control for Supply Chain Management reference book - https://books.google.com/books/about/Manufacturing_Planning_... This book is absolute gold. Manufacturing is like playing this game Factorio (google it) but in real life. It is an exciting field ripe for innovation, many very hard problems and unlimited potential (and a lot of risk as well).

Re: Doctors Say Shortage of Protective Gear Is Dire

#40

Post by viraptor » Fri, Mar 20, 2020, 5:33 AM UTC

lettergram wrote: post #34

The crazy thing to me is the government or hospitals haven’t issued a massive n95 drive to obtain more. I have a few left over from a house project I did a while back. Kept one for myself, but happy to donate the other 4 I have. I’m sure if the request was actually made people would donate. Is it enough? No idea, but construction workers, painters, etc don’t need them right now. People want to do something, let them.

Just curious why are you waiting for a request? Why not call the nearest hospital and say "I've got 4 n95 masks, do you want them?"

There is a problem with issuing a request - not everyone will know about it. As you mentioned, you think there was no request. But there were multiple: here's one example https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2020/hospitals-are...