or not having a strategic reserve of masks, gloves and suits in a giant warehouse somewhere. You could rotate the stock though the marketplace during safe times so it would cost little. Probably less than the CDCs $110 million dollar visitors center.
What kind of pandemic was the government preparing for? One that did not need n95 masks and disposable gloves? One that wouldn't see a shortage of PPE?
> The Department of Health and Human Services said last week that the stockpile has about 12 million N95 respirators and 30 million surgical masks —a scant 1 percent of the estimated 3.5 billion masks the nation would need in a severe pandemic. Another 5 million N95 masks in the stockpile are expired.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/face-masks-in-...
The article goes into a lot more detail, including what the stockpile includes, funding, and information about state stockpiles.
Some "bioterrorism" spectacle that would be localized to a small area, requiring only a small supply sold by a politically-connected middleman, who could mark up the price 30x while having no difficulty sourcing the modest quantity from a commercial supplier.
I have an N99 (actually FFP3, a pretty much equivalent European standard I gather) from some DIY work a year or so ago; I haven't been out in some time, but when I did I didn't wear it for the same reason.
It will be interesting to see what happens to production, and commercial & residential stockpiles when we do get back to something resembling normality. I suspect there'll be a marked increase in non-Asian* routine mask-wearers on public transport, for example.
(* it was a lot more common among that group anyway, so I'm not so sure in my speculation that it would increase so much.)
[0]:https://ohsonline.com/articles/2014/05/01/comparison-respira... [1]:https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008MCV1HY/ref=as_li_tl?ie...
https://www.wired.com/story/coronavirus-interview-larry-bril...
The thing is that even if it is bigger than virus it still stops part of it.
Especially if it is true that virus is is not airborne and spreads through droplets.
In that case even scarf might be better than nothing (you should wash it often though).
If both parties have a mask, even just made at home from a piece of cloth or even a scarf, the risk of one party infecting the other goes way down, even without sophisticated respirators being used.
