The free market is also 3M realizing after the SARS outbreak in 2003 that something like this might happen again, and building surge capacity into its manufacturing plants. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-03-25/3m-double...

Unfortunately, the CDC learned no such lesson and continued to operate as though no widespread contagious disease could possibly break out on US soil, as they had virtually no stockpile of masks nor even plans to secure the mask supply chain, etc (not to mention their testing strategy only scaled to hundreds of cases per day). I suppose that's the unitary state.

Of course, the CDC should have a serious reserve of masks (and other general equipment for the most likely outbreaks) and plans to secure the supply chain, including partnering with private industry to make sure they can operate at an increased capacity in case of emergency. There's no fundamental reason that our federal agencies have to be incompetent with respect to their fundamental purpose.

True enough, but the CDC discretionary budget was tiny. In order to establish a significant stockpile they would have needed a budget line item from Congress. So Congress certainly deserves a portion of the blame for lack of foresight.

I don’t buy that argument because:

1. Masks were dirt cheap and certainly useful for any serious epidemic or bioterrorism event or just about any other emergency scenario for which the CDC would be called upon (our reserves were in the tens of thousands, but those masks sell for cents apiece—could have had a million masks for ~$500K)

2. The CDC didn’t even have plans to secure the supply chain, and plans are damn near free

3. The CDC was budget constrained but went and developed its own test instead of using the WHO test?

EDIT: Updated math figure

>could have had a billion masks for ~$500K

Something is seriously off with your math.

Only 3 orders of magnitude. :)

Thanks for the correction.

3M can crank up production by 2x short term, and much more in 12 months, by which time it may be too late.

This is where the US government could step in. The federal government should mandate a certain level of production and guarantee purchase of those masks, if folks abuse these bids we should pursue them hard in court like we did in WWII... I mean, if the courts are going to actually hold folks to account, that's the big question.

The U.S. Army does that for ammo, with big government-owned munitions plants. Many production lines are mothballed, but can be started up if needed. There's little demand for artillery projectiles in peacetime, and a huge demand in wartime.