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.

The only real facility for high volume production in the US is 3M in Minnesota, I believe. Current estimates place supply chain matching demand in 80-90 days (though I don't know if that's domestic or worldwide).

The problem is harder if we demand flexible fabric. That isn't how gas masks are done. With a canister filter, all sorts of options become possible. We could use sintered glass, ceramic, or metal. We might be able to use aerogel, diatomaceous earth, or metal foam. We could even go electronic, with a UV light.

Filters with greater air flow resistance can be used if we add a blower. Remember that the virus can enter via eyes. Eyes need protection. Eyes also need air, and it can't be humid or the protection will fog up. For this too, a blower would help.

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".

200 million surgical masks but only 600k n95 masks, per the npr article gp linked to.

The machines to make the n95 masks take both the Germans and Chinese about 6 months to make.

You need the tools, but you don't have them. So you need the tools that make the tools. But you don't have those either. So you have two layers of tools you need to make from basic tools. Then you need supply chains for all the inputs. It's not as easy as waving a magic wand. But I do suspect that if we had started in January something could have been done.

> 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 from this family of viruses.

This is a massive mistake by hundreds of our leaders.

While it's obviously not unpredictable, it was a widespread failure, across a range of political systems - EU, China, and US. We've seen success at scale in SK, which is a smaller, homogenous, high-conformity democracy.

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.

Facemasks and other PPE are perishable. Also, many were used in 2009, and the stocks have not substantially replenished in more than a decade.

I understand. But, it's about keeping a reserve. On one hand, it's wasteful. On the other hand, a maintained reserve can save lives. This is a problem that can be solved with money.

Planet Money did a great episode recently on how the US government is currently paying for a year-round supply of chicken eggs to produce vaccine for a pandemic flu. (https://www.npr.org/transcripts/812943907).

I understand this situation is different from eggs, as an egg not used for a vaccine can be converted to feed, but in the end it's all about money. It's like an insurance policy. I pay for auto insurance but don't use it until I really need it.

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!"