51–60 of 145 posts
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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...
They aren't having trouble scaling up... They already have. 200 million masks a day, 20x in February. If we (America) can't scale up we are in deep doodoo. Trump has been pissing off China by calling the Corona virus the "China Virus".
The machines to make the n95 masks take both the Germans and Chinese about 6 months to make.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nobody is at the wheel, and this is quite apparent. Federal leadership squandered a month of response time insisting that there was no problem while focusing on corporate welfare to keep pumping the stonk market. Thus demonstrating that the national motto really is "fuck you, got mine". And so it's not terribly surprising that everyone is selfishly looking out for themselves. Protecting ourselves is literally the onl…
I mean say what you will, but that kind of is the American way since the founding of the republic. Don't trust the sovereign to take care of you, because just sometimes that ends with the cops welding people into apartment buildings Does that mean people should hoard and price gouge their fellow man during a pandemic, of course not.
Having said that, there is a huge blindspot of this philosophy with regards to public health. So much so, that when public health officials do their job, we can comfortably take them for granted. Wasn't it great when the CDC was simply a "waste of taxpayer money" ?
In general we shouldn't blindly trust the government to take care of us. But we all implicitly did anyway, by not already having stockpiled all of these goods far ahead of time. As this has now become acutely apparent, everyone is looking to stock up for themselves aka hoard.
We're about to see what happens to Freedom when this centralized response is not performed early enough to nip the problem in the bud. In a month, the national guard is likely to be patrolling to keep order, as the supply of hospital beds severely lags demand.
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…
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…
Nobody is at the wheel, and this is quite apparent. Federal leadership squandered a month of response time insisting that there was no problem while focusing on corporate welfare to keep pumping the stonk market. Thus demonstrating that the national motto really is "fuck you, got mine". And so it's not terribly surprising that everyone is selfishly looking out for themselves. Protecting ourselves is literally the onl…
Today, it seems an inability to see what's necessary and get it to people is disturbing. The situation is effectively a war and one that's being fought very quickly.
I could brainstorm and mention the "fast fashion" is renown for creating conventional clothing to a variety of specifications, quickly. It seems like that talent could be harnessed for various kinds of safety equipment. Just an example, I'm sure there are a hundred similar things conceivable but despite the looming collapse of conventional procedures, somehow all bureaucratic hurdles remain in place.
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…
Can you email me (email in profile) and I can connect you to some people in the US trying to solve this.
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…
> we're about to enter an unprecedented public health crisis. this is where you lose me... it’s not unprecedented, quite the opposite. Throughout all human history this has been common. Recently (since WWII), we’ve been able to limit the lethality of most diseases and/or reduce transmissions. But this should have been prepared for. They (the government) even had a playbook for it, they had evidence it could even be f…
In theory, a free-market democracy would solve the misallocations caused by these blunders more efficiently than the other systems. But the US doesn't have a free-market healthcare system -- or even a free-market mask manufacturing system. As this thread indicates, we're about to see a lot of people die from red tape in Western countries.
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…
Euro here. Would you send me an email (in profile)?