It isn’t a “remote” possibility that facebook employees end up needing respirators since it isn’t a “remote” possibility that there will be wildfires again in California this year. That is what is expected to happen.
Although it’s hard to tell what will be the impact of the global shut-downs reducing greenhouse gases on global temperatures this summer (if that will even have any impact so soon).
I would still say that having stockpiles of PPE is good management. My sister is a nurse and she had been complaining about having to find gloves last year, long before there even was a crisis. Some of these hospitals really do skimp on equipment. Just In Time and LEAN practices are cool, but you need to keep a stock of backups enough to last a month or two in the event of a shortage where every other hospital is also trying to produce the same equipment. Some might say it’s easy to say this in hindsight, but I’ve been hearing about these practices long before this crisis. Right now everything on the news about these shortages just echoes what many healthcare professionals already knew and were concerned about. There are systemic management issues in the medical industry. Hopefully a bill comes from this.
Facebook has just a tad bit more money to prepare for these remote possibilities compared with your average hospital. Plus hospitals have to justify every cost in relation to how many lives it will save. Is prepping for a once in a century pandemic going to save more lives than having an extra doctor on staff for every shift? Almost everyone would have answered no to that questions up until a few weeks or months ago.