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A comment on Hospital workers make masks from office supplies. Parent comment

Re:Hospital workers make masks from office supplies by tjohns on Wednesday March 18, 2020 @10:39PM (#22623833)
From what I read, it seems there was a cache of N95 respirators in the Strategic National Stockpile.

However, it was depleted during the 2009 H1N1 outbreak and never replenished. Instead, their budget was used for what they thought were more pressing concerns at the time — stockpiling drugs/equipment for other emerging diseases.

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/face-masks-in-...

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Re:Hospital workers make masks from office supplies by mirimir on Wednesday March 18, 2020 @11:06PM (#22624012)
With a larger budget, they could have done both. And why was their budget so limited?
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Re:Hospital workers make masks from office supplies by tzfld on Thursday March 19, 2020 @08:38AM (#22626848)
How much of a budget would you need to stockpile like 10 million masks? I don't think it is a cost problem.
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Re:Hospital workers make masks from office supplies by mirimir on Thursday March 19, 2020 @04:19PM (#22631262)
No, it's not a cost issue. But I suspect that it was a consequence of meeting fixed cost reduction targets, and being something where cutting had no immediate impact.
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Re:Hospital workers make masks from office supplies by Rebelgecko on Wednesday March 18, 2020 @11:13PM (#22624053)
Probably in part due to the 2012 sequester
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Re:Hospital workers make masks from office supplies by mirimir on Wednesday March 18, 2020 @11:41PM (#22624204)
More generally, the Budget Control Act of 2011.
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