MASKS
MASKS
It's criminal. If I lose a fam member because of the shortage there... This has been like the Keystone Kops. Any business run like these idiots have would go under quickly.
In a survey of 23,000 registered nurses, National Nurses United found 85 percent were asked to reuse masks designed for single use - but Pence says PPE supplies remain “very strong”. Pence is in charge of coronavirus "messaging". Fools.
I don't post here much, but I'd like to share the following. Just a general response to the group.
I work for a big distributor of Medical devices and supplies. We absolutely knew that there was going to be a PPE shortage back in January. We began putting customers on what is called "allocation" which means all customers were permitted to buy only a percentage (70% at the start I believe) of their normal amount. Customers not previously having us as a vendor were not allowed to purchase at all. By April, we had staffed up and innovated a way to decontaminate the disposable facial coverings and N95 masks., and we sold hundreds of thousands We were blocked from being able to label these masks as anything more than "facial coverings" by the FDA. Perhaps there was a good reason for this, and perhaps it was political. I will also say have to say that Project Airbridge was valuable in cutting the timeline of the delivery of millions of masks. It's important to recognize that we use a lot of masks in this country! One hospital system (about 50 hospitals) that we supply uses 700,000 per day. For perspective, the reason this crisis was coming and everyone knew it is that there were and are mostly all produced in Wuhan. Whether the virus ever came to our shores or not, we were going to have a crisis. Manufacturers are very slow to make changes in process and distribution patterns. The Defense Production Act would have forced them to act and perhaps protected their losses that would have been incurred, but it was never used.
The reason that the message changed over time IMHO is obvious and it's unfortunate that it became politicized or still serves to confuse people. The PPE crisis was so acute when it started that the CDC and others were hesitant to recommend their widespread use because we didn't know how bad this shortage would get. Don't get me wrong, it got bad - and has recovered quite a bit, and I guess now it's coming back a bit - although I don't here as much about it internally. It's easy to look back now and see where the 'high water' mark of the shortage was, but in February, there was no way to predict that. They simply had to prioritize the most resources to those with the most acute demand. And if you don't believe that, you're really not gonna like it when you learn how a free market medical system works.
Of course a facial covering works. Mostly to protect others. The CDC was never confused about this, but leaders had to prioritize needs.
Masks work.
Anything works.
Some things work better than others.
Coughing into your elbow works.
Your mom taught you this.
But masks work.
Don't get confused by the politics. Even pre-Covid you would never consider a surgeon who doesn't use a mask. Think about that for a minute.