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There is reason to believe that the hospital mask shortage is due in no small part to employee (and patient/family) theft of masks and not necessarily due to dr

There is reason to believe that the hospital mask shortage is due in no small part to employee (and patient/family) theft of masks and not necessarily due to dramatically increased need at hospitals (at least not yet). I say this as a resident physician at an urban hospital in the US. We're now severely low on N95 masks and moderately low on surgical masks but we have only had less than a dozen confirmed covid-19 cases (granted about 100 tested negative cases) so there's no way even 100 additional patients requiring masks suddenly plummeted our stockpiles of masks. Indeed, hospital administration noticed and sent out a mass email imploring employees to return unused masks in personal possession.

Bograff 7y ago
We should have stockpiles for just this sort of situation. They were either inadequately supplied or are sitting on resources. https://www.phe.gov/about/sns/Pages/default.aspx https://www.phe.gov/about/sns/Pages/default.aspx
rhegart 7y ago
This. There are barely any covid 19 patients yet hospitals are low on masks due to panic. Beds are still open and ventilators contrary to media claims are not currently on a shortage.
- jumelles 7y ago
  Yet.
- diabeetusman 7y ago
  There are also not nearly as many tests being run as there are patients with suspect symptoms. Yes, the number of confirmed COVID-19 patients may be low, but that doesn't mean that the number of people with the disease is low. According to the CDC[1], you can contact your healthcare provider for the possibility of a test if (and only if) you are in close contact with someone with the disease or if you're in a community where there's ongoing spread. That's still a very limited subset of people who might have the disease. There's very limited insight into who does or does not have the disease in the US. [1]https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/symptoms-testing/testing.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/symptoms-testing/t...
  - rhegart 7y ago
    True but maybe 1% of those need respirators and those that do need them regardless of testing are currently getting them. Due to current measures no one is dying due to a shortage of medical equipment in the US. That said, we must manufacture medical equipment for pandemics locally or have a reserve like oil.
  - cameldrv 7y ago
    And these criteria become a catch-22. How does a community become identified as having community spread if you won't test anyone in a community that isn't so identified? My understanding is someone has to be admitted to the hospital and then tested to get the ball rolling.
- thymolu 7y ago
  My family (and myself) work as various healthcare providers. One of them said a few days ago masks and other supplies were stolen from a delivery truck that was broken into as the driver went in to start the delivery to the hospital. My sense is there's a lot of leakiness in supply of various forms. My experience is similar to those of others here: it's not really clear there's a substantial increased patient count at the hospitals here, test or not, but supplies are getting scarcer. Maybe other areas of the country or world are creating shortages. Testing is a mess, but that's a different issue, one maybe more relevant to public health and policies in some ways.
quadrifoliate 7y ago
Firstly, thanks for your work, and good luck :| Perhaps theft can explain the reduction, but isn't that equivalent to (for example) a leaky toilet destroying the room that the masks are in? In other words, perhaps it is still indicative a weakness in the hospital's supply chain that they can't make up for a sudden shortage of masks due to rare circumstances.
- outlace 7y ago
  Oh there's definitely a supply chain issue now; we're not going to be able to re-stock anytime soon is my understanding. So there was absolutely a high degree of unpreparedness at many levels. However, we already nearly depleted our masks and we haven't even had a significant spike in need yet. If people hadn't been stealing masks for their own personal use outside the hospital, we probably could have had our supplies last another few weeks, which is significant.
mindslight 7y ago
Nobody is at the wheel, and this is quite apparent. Federal leadership squandered a month of response time insisting that there was no problem while focusing on corporate welfare to keep pumping the stonk market. Thus demonstrating that the national motto really is "fuck you, got mine". And so it's not terribly surprising that everyone is selfishly looking out for themselves. Protecting ourselves is literally the only thing we can do. That's a failed society for us.
- thedudeabides5 7y ago
  I mean say what you will, but that kind of is the American way since the founding of the republic. Don't trust the sovereign to take care of you, because just sometimes that ends with the cops welding people into apartment buildings Does that mean people should hoard and price gouge their fellow man during a pandemic, of course not.
  - mindslight 7y ago
    I'd call myself a libertarian. I've gone through phases of many different flavors, but ultimately all united by a general belief that people should be free to make choices for themselves, and ultimately know themselves better than a centralized government. Having said that, there is a huge blindspot of this philosophy with regards to public health. So much so, that when public health officials do their job, we can comfortably take them for granted. Wasn't it great when the CDC was simply a "waste of taxpayer money" ? In general we shouldn't blindly trust the government to take care of us. But we all implicitly did anyway, by not already having stockpiled all of these goods far ahead of time. As this has now become acutely apparent, everyone is looking to stock up for themselves aka hoard. We're about to see what happens to Freedom when this centralized response is not performed early enough to nip the problem in the bud. In a month, the national guard is likely to be patrolling to keep order, as the supply of hospital beds severely lags demand.
    - thymolu 7y ago
      I'm of the libertarian persuasion too, but I'm really more of what I might refer to as a competitivist, that the government ideally increases competitive exchange of goods services and ideas. Sometimes this means more government services, sometimes less. Regulation is also different from service or resource provision. In a lot of ways, this crisis was worsened by overregulation. The FDA and CDC to some extent contributed to testing shortages by emphasizing centralized micromanaging of test protocol over test availability. It was entirely preventable. Many of the crunches we're seeing are due to rent seeking monopolies restricting provider pools and other red tape, that are entirety self inflicted. You're starting to see glimpses of this problem with things like lifting interstate licensing practice constraints, but it's the tip of the iceberg. US healthcare needs a lot more public support in the form of single payer, etc, but also needs a lot of deregulation. Libertarianism isn't anarchism either. Healthcare is one of those areas where I think public services makes a lot of sense.
FireBeyond 7y ago
EMS provider in WA state - our current plan is "Assign N95 to provider. Use on calls as appropriate. If pt has flu-like symptoms/ upper respiratory/ etc, place mask in paper bag in warm space, write date. Re-use after two weeks (i.e. a safe time for virus to die)". Otherwise, re-use as needed. Disposal in case of blood/sputum/etc contamination, only.
ebrenes 7y ago
I'm honestly very conflicted now that you mention this. Yesterday some friends hit me up to donate to a gofundme page to support getting masks for a hospital a friend works at. It's a state university hospital with hundreds of millions in endowment in a red state. It's easy to become jaded and cynical, but I'm beginning to believe this is the wake up call a lot of people need and anything less than an unmitigated disaster will be converted into a win to all these science denying, public health de-funding radicals running some governments. It's probably the stress, anxiety and anger at the impotence caused by all this, but I can't help but feel a desire to lash out those people who have made things worse.

Bograff 7y ago

We should have stockpiles for just this sort of situation. They were either inadequately supplied or are sitting on resources. https://www.phe.gov/about/sns/Pages/default.aspx https://www.phe.gov/about/sns/Pages/default.aspx

rhegart 7y ago

This. There are barely any covid 19 patients yet hospitals are low on masks due to panic. Beds are still open and ventilators contrary to media claims are not currently on a shortage.

jumelles 7y ago
Yet.
diabeetusman 7y ago
There are also not nearly as many tests being run as there are patients with suspect symptoms. Yes, the number of confirmed COVID-19 patients may be low, but that doesn't mean that the number of people with the disease is low. According to the CDC[1], you can contact your healthcare provider for the possibility of a test if (and only if) you are in close contact with someone with the disease or if you're in a community where there's ongoing spread. That's still a very limited subset of people who might have the disease. There's very limited insight into who does or does not have the disease in the US. [1]https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/symptoms-testing/testing.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/symptoms-testing/t...
- rhegart 7y ago
  True but maybe 1% of those need respirators and those that do need them regardless of testing are currently getting them. Due to current measures no one is dying due to a shortage of medical equipment in the US. That said, we must manufacture medical equipment for pandemics locally or have a reserve like oil.
- cameldrv 7y ago
  And these criteria become a catch-22. How does a community become identified as having community spread if you won't test anyone in a community that isn't so identified? My understanding is someone has to be admitted to the hospital and then tested to get the ball rolling.
thymolu 7y ago
My family (and myself) work as various healthcare providers. One of them said a few days ago masks and other supplies were stolen from a delivery truck that was broken into as the driver went in to start the delivery to the hospital. My sense is there's a lot of leakiness in supply of various forms. My experience is similar to those of others here: it's not really clear there's a substantial increased patient count at the hospitals here, test or not, but supplies are getting scarcer. Maybe other areas of the country or world are creating shortages. Testing is a mess, but that's a different issue, one maybe more relevant to public health and policies in some ways.

quadrifoliate 7y ago

Firstly, thanks for your work, and good luck :| Perhaps theft can explain the reduction, but isn't that equivalent to (for example) a leaky toilet destroying the room that the masks are in? In other words, perhaps it is still indicative a weakness in the hospital's supply chain that they can't make up for a sudden shortage of masks due to rare circumstances.

outlace 7y ago
Oh there's definitely a supply chain issue now; we're not going to be able to re-stock anytime soon is my understanding. So there was absolutely a high degree of unpreparedness at many levels. However, we already nearly depleted our masks and we haven't even had a significant spike in need yet. If people hadn't been stealing masks for their own personal use outside the hospital, we probably could have had our supplies last another few weeks, which is significant.

mindslight 7y ago

Nobody is at the wheel, and this is quite apparent. Federal leadership squandered a month of response time insisting that there was no problem while focusing on corporate welfare to keep pumping the stonk market. Thus demonstrating that the national motto really is "fuck you, got mine". And so it's not terribly surprising that everyone is selfishly looking out for themselves. Protecting ourselves is literally the only thing we can do. That's a failed society for us.

thedudeabides5 7y ago
I mean say what you will, but that kind of is the American way since the founding of the republic. Don't trust the sovereign to take care of you, because just sometimes that ends with the cops welding people into apartment buildings Does that mean people should hoard and price gouge their fellow man during a pandemic, of course not.
- mindslight 7y ago
  I'd call myself a libertarian. I've gone through phases of many different flavors, but ultimately all united by a general belief that people should be free to make choices for themselves, and ultimately know themselves better than a centralized government. Having said that, there is a huge blindspot of this philosophy with regards to public health. So much so, that when public health officials do their job, we can comfortably take them for granted. Wasn't it great when the CDC was simply a "waste of taxpayer money" ? In general we shouldn't blindly trust the government to take care of us. But we all implicitly did anyway, by not already having stockpiled all of these goods far ahead of time. As this has now become acutely apparent, everyone is looking to stock up for themselves aka hoard. We're about to see what happens to Freedom when this centralized response is not performed early enough to nip the problem in the bud. In a month, the national guard is likely to be patrolling to keep order, as the supply of hospital beds severely lags demand.
  - thymolu 7y ago
    I'm of the libertarian persuasion too, but I'm really more of what I might refer to as a competitivist, that the government ideally increases competitive exchange of goods services and ideas. Sometimes this means more government services, sometimes less. Regulation is also different from service or resource provision. In a lot of ways, this crisis was worsened by overregulation. The FDA and CDC to some extent contributed to testing shortages by emphasizing centralized micromanaging of test protocol over test availability. It was entirely preventable. Many of the crunches we're seeing are due to rent seeking monopolies restricting provider pools and other red tape, that are entirety self inflicted. You're starting to see glimpses of this problem with things like lifting interstate licensing practice constraints, but it's the tip of the iceberg. US healthcare needs a lot more public support in the form of single payer, etc, but also needs a lot of deregulation. Libertarianism isn't anarchism either. Healthcare is one of those areas where I think public services makes a lot of sense.

FireBeyond 7y ago

EMS provider in WA state - our current plan is "Assign N95 to provider. Use on calls as appropriate. If pt has flu-like symptoms/ upper respiratory/ etc, place mask in paper bag in warm space, write date. Re-use after two weeks (i.e. a safe time for virus to die)". Otherwise, re-use as needed. Disposal in case of blood/sputum/etc contamination, only.

ebrenes 7y ago

I'm honestly very conflicted now that you mention this. Yesterday some friends hit me up to donate to a gofundme page to support getting masks for a hospital a friend works at. It's a state university hospital with hundreds of millions in endowment in a red state. It's easy to become jaded and cynical, but I'm beginning to believe this is the wake up call a lot of people need and anything less than an unmitigated disaster will be converted into a win to all these science denying, public health de-funding radicals running some governments. It's probably the stress, anxiety and anger at the impotence caused by all this, but I can't help but feel a desire to lash out those people who have made things worse.