Re:The N95 mask shortage America can't seem to fix
by wbl on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @11:32AM
(#24568233)
Congress could always go back and spend more. They choose not to.
Re:The N95 mask shortage America can't seem to fix
by ch4s3 on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @11:57AM
(#24568516)
I wholeheartedly agree that the current will to power approach taken by both parties in congress has rendered them useless. My overarching point however was that money ins't a magical crank you can turn that makes goods come into existence. The N95 problem is complicated, and not many companies could produce them even if they were funded.
They also don't want to get stuck with a factory floor full of mask machines after the pandemic is over.
This is a somewhat ahistorical. The Defense Production Act of 1950 is what everyone is talking about. Withe respect to WWII, production increased every month of the war until the end, and the ramp up began in a limited fashion a year or two before the US entered the war.
The thing people miss is that a lot of what was produced by converted companies in the first year of the war was junk. The guns jammed, the planes fell out of the sky, and so on. Typewriter companies just don't know how to make rifles, and it took a lot of trial and error for them to figure it out. Literally they had to get back field reports on what broke and then try to reproduce and fix it, then put that fix into production. No amount of the government will it to be could make typewriter machinists immediately good at making rifles, even though those worker probably knew men who would depend on those same rifles.
Now consider that the weaving machines for n95 masks are probably several orders of magnitude more complicated than the lathes used to make rifles or the tools used to make a 1945 aircraft.
You're also forgetting that the first thing we tried to ramp up with a government nudge was ventilators, and numerous companies tried. Most of them failed however, and that experience isn't forgotten by other companies. Then it turned out that no one was paying attention to data from China and Italy that suggested that ventilators may actually be causing WORSE outcomes, but when doctors noticed the demand plummeted. Those manufacturers were now left holding the bag. Who want's to sign on for that?
Then, consider the PPE ramp up. A lot of companies participated, but cash strapped hospitals weren't buying because the moratorium on elective surgeries killed their cash flow, which no one had previously expected at a policy level. Sure the government could have stepped in, but again no one saw that coming before hand so extra funding for PPE for hospitals didn't get included in the Covid relief bill.
Now, after 2 big misfires the political will is spent.