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My knowledge about industrial manufacturing is slim to none so can someone explain please why is it not possible to (globally) ramp up production of face masks

My knowledge about industrial manufacturing is slim to none so can someone explain please why is it not possible to (globally) ramp up production of face masks and ventilators to a virtually unlimited quantity? What exactly is the bottleneck? Are we lacking materials, labour or the technical know-how? Are the factories currently producing them so advanced and hard to reproduce?

raverbashing 7y ago
I think you can ramp production of those but it will still require people to work them and the most severe cases are still fatal even with the ventilators.
- samsonradu 7y ago
  Well, there is no silver bullet here is it? If we're to solve this we'll probably need to tackle it from all sides - isolation, vaccine and treatment.
- throwaway_pdp09 7y ago
  AKA there's no 100% guarantee for anything. Your point being what?
  - raverbashing 7y ago
    My point is that you don't need to scale production of ventilators beyond the capacity of the medical system of deploying them.
fulafel 7y ago
Same as many other problems (eg global warming) - the market economy can't deliver a solution because it's not short teem profitable for the relevant actors.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  It could be priced to be short term profitable, but then the sellers would get accused of price gouging.
  - fulafel 7y ago
    And poor countries would get nada.
  - jeltz 7y ago
    Not all countries have laws against price gouging (e.g. I am pretty sure it is legal the price gouge the government in my country) and there is still a lack of face masks in those countries.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    If manufacturers sold direct-to-consumers, they wouldn't. Problem with price gouging happens because of resellers, and that money does not work as a signal for manufacturers. The solution for undersupply in times of emergency is, IMO, to ban resale. Some countries, including mine, went that route now.
- rurban 7y ago
  We are expecting a global economy crisis, much bigger than the last wallstreet crash. There needs to be a solution in the next 6 weeks, not 6 months. Because by then we'll have a bankrun and global shutdown of social behavior. Profitability needs to look into the next 6 months, not just 2 weeks. And btw, we don't do market economy here anymore. The UK tried and gave up 2 days ago. They are all in centralized crisis mode.
  - samsonradu 7y ago
    I don't agree here. There's the economy as we know it, which might crash/malfunction but then there is the Real Life™. It might seem that the two are very interconnected and society cannot function without a healthy banking system. Reality however proves different. Let's take a look at Iran, a country under heavy financial and commercial sanctions (for quite a few years), partially at war, with widespread riots brewing up until just one month ago and with little control over the virus's spread. Life goes on, people still eat, speak to each other and most continue their day to day activities. Same goes for Venezuela or Lebanon. Sure, some people will need to adjust from selling derivatives to more 'core' activities, but the world will not end. The social system is more resilient than it looks. EDIT From a longer-term/big picture point of view, I think it would be healthy to debunk this 'myth' that somehow the world cannot survive a big bank going bust. Let's not mistake preserving status quo for a functioning society as a way going forward.
TeMPOraL 7y ago
You need time to switch machines and people to different production. The best-suited plants are all in Asia. Supply chain is thoroughly shot and in state of chaos at this point. That said, a lot of efforts are underway simultaneously, so I expect massive-scale production will start very soon.
kjaftaedi 7y ago
Regular masks it is possible to ramp up production. N95 masks, it is not easily possible to ramp up production in a short time frame. This article explains it well: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/16/814929294/covid-19-has-caused-a-shortage-of-face-masks-but-theyre-surprisingly-hard-to-mak https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/16/8149292...
- fulafel 7y ago
  N95 just means anything that can filter out 95% of nacl in a specific test, the implementation is not constrained to this type of fabric. There are other ways of doing it.
  - zzzcpan 7y ago
    Right. I'd say polypropylene spunbond-meltblown-spunbond design is just a safe choice for non-reusable medical masks. It's not necessary, and especially for general population, for that just spunbond alone should be enough which is in abundance and there are other polymers too. And the masks should be treated as reusable outside of hospitals, polypropylene is safe to boil.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - pizzazzaro 7y ago
    Yeah... Lets not forget that you actually need to get fitted for those masks. Simply producing a mass market variant that allows for gaps in the masks' coverage, air seepage? Defeats the purpose.
SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
It's possible and it's happening. The bottleneck for face masks is largely getting the right supply chains in place; for ventilators, I'd guess (but don't know for sure) that setting up the actual manufacturing takes more time. Note that another bottleneck for facemasks is shipping volume from China, which is largely drowning in facemasks at this point. There are a lot just waiting in line to be shipped.

raverbashing 7y ago

I think you can ramp production of those but it will still require people to work them and the most severe cases are still fatal even with the ventilators.

samsonradu 7y ago
Well, there is no silver bullet here is it? If we're to solve this we'll probably need to tackle it from all sides - isolation, vaccine and treatment.
throwaway_pdp09 7y ago
AKA there's no 100% guarantee for anything. Your point being what?
- raverbashing 7y ago
  My point is that you don't need to scale production of ventilators beyond the capacity of the medical system of deploying them.

fulafel 7y ago

Same as many other problems (eg global warming) - the market economy can't deliver a solution because it's not short teem profitable for the relevant actors.

lotsofpulp 7y ago
It could be priced to be short term profitable, but then the sellers would get accused of price gouging.
- fulafel 7y ago
  And poor countries would get nada.
- jeltz 7y ago
  Not all countries have laws against price gouging (e.g. I am pretty sure it is legal the price gouge the government in my country) and there is still a lack of face masks in those countries.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  If manufacturers sold direct-to-consumers, they wouldn't. Problem with price gouging happens because of resellers, and that money does not work as a signal for manufacturers. The solution for undersupply in times of emergency is, IMO, to ban resale. Some countries, including mine, went that route now.
rurban 7y ago
We are expecting a global economy crisis, much bigger than the last wallstreet crash. There needs to be a solution in the next 6 weeks, not 6 months. Because by then we'll have a bankrun and global shutdown of social behavior. Profitability needs to look into the next 6 months, not just 2 weeks. And btw, we don't do market economy here anymore. The UK tried and gave up 2 days ago. They are all in centralized crisis mode.
- samsonradu 7y ago
  I don't agree here. There's the economy as we know it, which might crash/malfunction but then there is the Real Life™. It might seem that the two are very interconnected and society cannot function without a healthy banking system. Reality however proves different. Let's take a look at Iran, a country under heavy financial and commercial sanctions (for quite a few years), partially at war, with widespread riots brewing up until just one month ago and with little control over the virus's spread. Life goes on, people still eat, speak to each other and most continue their day to day activities. Same goes for Venezuela or Lebanon. Sure, some people will need to adjust from selling derivatives to more 'core' activities, but the world will not end. The social system is more resilient than it looks. EDIT From a longer-term/big picture point of view, I think it would be healthy to debunk this 'myth' that somehow the world cannot survive a big bank going bust. Let's not mistake preserving status quo for a functioning society as a way going forward.

TeMPOraL 7y ago

You need time to switch machines and people to different production. The best-suited plants are all in Asia. Supply chain is thoroughly shot and in state of chaos at this point. That said, a lot of efforts are underway simultaneously, so I expect massive-scale production will start very soon.

kjaftaedi 7y ago

Regular masks it is possible to ramp up production. N95 masks, it is not easily possible to ramp up production in a short time frame. This article explains it well: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/16/814929294/covid-19-has-caused-a-shortage-of-face-masks-but-theyre-surprisingly-hard-to-mak https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/16/8149292...

fulafel 7y ago
N95 just means anything that can filter out 95% of nacl in a specific test, the implementation is not constrained to this type of fabric. There are other ways of doing it.
- zzzcpan 7y ago
  Right. I'd say polypropylene spunbond-meltblown-spunbond design is just a safe choice for non-reusable medical masks. It's not necessary, and especially for general population, for that just spunbond alone should be enough which is in abundance and there are other polymers too. And the masks should be treated as reusable outside of hospitals, polypropylene is safe to boil.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- pizzazzaro 7y ago
  Yeah... Lets not forget that you actually need to get fitted for those masks. Simply producing a mass market variant that allows for gaps in the masks' coverage, air seepage? Defeats the purpose.

SpicyLemonZest 7y ago

It's possible and it's happening. The bottleneck for face masks is largely getting the right supply chains in place; for ventilators, I'd guess (but don't know for sure) that setting up the actual manufacturing takes more time. Note that another bottleneck for facemasks is shipping volume from China, which is largely drowning in facemasks at this point. There are a lot just waiting in line to be shipped.