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The mask situation in the US is truly fucked up right now. I've been finding and sending masks and other PPE to the US from China. Started out for friends and f

The mask situation in the US is truly fucked up right now. I've been finding and sending masks and other PPE to the US from China. Started out for friends and family then it expanded to friends-of-friends, then anybody. It has a really weird dynamic. I've contacted over 100 hospitals. They don't want to help themselves. It's all about pushing people into a web form that fronts a bureaucratic system that supposedly allocates resources efficiently through a central clearing authority (never heard back from any of them), covering their ass in regards to regulatory requirements, and not allowing anyone to take advantage of them by charging money. Individuals aren't much better. They've had so much conflicting information drilled into them that of the few who still think masks are needed by regular people, many feel so guilty about getting them that they can't bring themselves to do it. Or can't wear them in public because people will judge them for taking away from nurses even though the same hospitals the nurses work at have made it clear they would rather have their employees work unprotected than buy something not approved by the FDA or stoop so low as to work with someone who can't donate everything for free. Have had way better success working with retired civic-minded business guys who can buy stuff through their local civic group and just get it done. It takes a surprising amount of almost outright harassment from these dudes to get the hospitals to either accept a donation or come up with a list of what they need and arrange funding, but so far getting hooked up with this type of person has been the only way I've found to get PPE (at least the kind that's still available) into a hospital.

gamblor956 7y ago
You're definitely not calling the right hospitals. In LA, hospitals have been accepting donations of masks from people, and purchasing them from local companies. No bureaucracy involved. And it's now rare to see people not wearing masks in LA.
- edge17 7y ago
  I think he's trying to offer his supply channel to hospitals that are talking about being desperate for supplies. People keep talking about donations, but the reality is that this is a crisis of supplies, not a crisis of money. My experience matches the parent comment here.
  - yellow_postit 7y ago
    Knowing OP is someone selling the wariness is all the more reasonable. Random internet stranger trying to sell masks, figuring out if they are legit or not is a valid concern before spending money.
    - edge17 7y ago
      That is correct, but again, the reality is that the whole supply chain comes from China and fake 3M masks also exist. Also, no one is telling the hospitals not to ask for samples and test the goods themselves. The problem is that the hospitals don't even understand what they're up against on the supply side, and they have an expectation that 'legit' masks will just show up. I've been knee deep in this stuff for the last two weeks or so, the article in this post is accurate from what I've seen on the supply side. This is also another accurate article - https://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2020/03/30/i-spent-a-day-in-the-coronavirus-driven-feeding-frenzy-of-n95-mask-sellers-and-buyers-and-this-is-what-i-learned/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2020/03/30/i-spent... One thing worth pointing out is the article points to the sheer number of supplies leaving the country due to hospitals being unable to pay quickly enough. All I can say is, the demand is real, the supply is constrained, and not all the 'random internet people' are scammers - a lot of them are people with very deep resources and relationships in China actually trying to do their part to bring PPE. In the end, donations aren't going to solve this problem. Reliable supply chains are, and reliable supply chains require that some small profit be made to cover material costs, cost of risk, cost of storage, etc.
  - gamblor956 7y ago
    Kaiser California was part of an attempted $39 million scam related to masks and other medical equipment just a week ago. Luckily they did their due diligence and no money changed hands, but there are a lot of scammers out there claiming to have masks who can't actually back up their claims. If the OP actually has those masks, and can prove he owns the inventory and that they are what he claims they are, he wouldn't be having any issues selling them right now.
- sieabahlpark 7y ago
  What? I live in LA and the majority are not wearing masks. At least on the westside. It's very casual still in some areas. Thankfully I don't see mother's taking their kid to soccer practice still.
  - jayd16 7y ago
    Went to the market today on the west side and it was probably 50-50 masks, maybe more masks than not. I think our sample sizes are just too low to draw exact numbers but its still much higher than last week.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - gamblor956 7y ago
    I haven't been to the Westside since they imposed Safer at Home, but east of the 405 at least half of the people are wearing masks, and in some neighborhoods almost everyone is.
- yodsanklai 7y ago
  Does it make sense to wear masks in the outside though? suppose I have a limited number of masks, should I keep them for indoor public spaces, such as public transportation or doctor's waiting room?
  - prirun 7y ago
    According to this article, masks can be reused (and critically, retain their electrostatic charge) by baking in an oven for 30 minutes at 160 F or steaming for 3-10 minutes (this article says 3, the CDC site says 10 I think): https://utrf.tennessee.edu/information-faqs-performance-protection-sterilization-of-face-mask-materials/ https://utrf.tennessee.edu/information-faqs-performance-prot... The CDC recommends not reusing masks, but sometimes it may be necessary. Another option is to have 5 masks in a paper bag and rotate them every day. The virus should be dead after 5 days. Another option I read is to steam a mask in the microwave using a plastic bag with 60ml (6 tbsp) of water for 3-10 minutes once steam is generated. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/ppe-strategy/decontamination-reuse-respirators.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/ppe-strategy/d... I am only passing on information I read and am not qualified to judge its accuracy.
samcheng 7y ago
Hospitals do seem to graciously accept donations, even opened (half-used) boxes of masks. You can just drive up and hand them off. Second-tier healthcare facilities, such as elder care centers and rural clinics, are also desperate for PPE right now. We just drove up to the UCSF hospital and dropped off a couple hundred pounds of supplies. No fuss: https://www.rinse.com/blog/rinse/covid-19-medical-supply-drive https://www.rinse.com/blog/rinse/covid-19-medical-supply-dri... Here's an example organization with a long list of facilities accepting donated supplies: https://www.donateppe.org/ https://www.donateppe.org/ I'm sure it's harder to convince the terribly inefficient US health care bureaucracy to pay for this. I noticed our local Chinese American community, combating a worrisome rise in racism, has been active in the philanthropic distribution of masks. You might try raising funding that way, instead of through the bureaucracy. I've also noticed a reluctance to accept the Chinese KN95 standard. People don't trust it, for better or worse. I think they would rather have homemade cloth masks, to be honest. Not sure how you can change that perception. Best of luck in your efforts!
- edge17 7y ago
  The economic reality is that most of the chinese supply chain that creates most of the masks is KN95 because China mobilized their country for their needs first. Quality is definitely an issue, but the bureaucratic layers of many of the hospitals in the US are definitely protecting the business at the expense of the safety of front line workers. Most of them simply don't understand what is going on at the ground level of the supply chain.
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    As someone who spends way too much time hanging around with cynical lawyers I am not surprised by the current state of affairs. We've spent the last 30yr using civil case law to heavily incentivize organizations to build process and follow that process even when it's stupid, push decision making higher up and remove the capacity for decisions making down low (like middle manager level) where they can happen fast. It's not that the people want to protect the business at the expense of patients but that the business itself is structured in a way that it's impossible for the people who make it up to do break protocol that says they have to meet X Y and Z criteria when sourcing supplies without it being a fire-able offense.
alexis_fr 7y ago
There will be another scandal with infected masks, it is bound to happen. At one point, a large percentage of the population is infected unknowingly, and manufacturing masks in a pure environment won’t be easy.
- TylerE 7y ago
  Unlikely. Lifespan on nonorganic surfaces is limited to a few days.
  - alexis_fr 7y ago
    Some studies already say they survive 7 days on masks, and a flight is only a few hours. HN is really becoming an echo chamber where there is only one leading trend, downvoting to hell the various opinions, and it is really bad for HN’s ability to help entrepreneurs anticipate on trends.
    - ejstronge 7y ago
      Do you have a link to these studies? I haven’t heard of a study showing viability this far out (vs showing the presence of viral nuclei acids, which is not sufficient for infection)
m4rtink 7y ago
While not perfect (we could have definitely acted sooner) the Czech system of handling PPE distribution seems to have worked so far: - banned export of sanitizer and drugs early on - banned sale of FFP3 class respirators to anyone else than healthcare providers and the state - required everyone to wear masks in public of any type (this is rather important as it both prevents asymptomatic carriers from spreading the infection & remove the mask stigma by everyone having one) - this triggered a huge wave of basically everyone with a sewing machine & some fabric making masks, by now (~third week of masks) basically everyone is stocked and is quite easy to buy a had made mask online or get it from your local administration (there are now even some mask vending machines) - started an air bridge from China (various aircraft - from the government, chartered & NATO leased An-124s, planes appropriated from various airlines), so far 500+ tons of PPE and medical supplies have been acquired - material distribution is handled by the state (army, firefighters & sometimes even the police) to all the hospitals, care homes, for police, social workers, etc.
- grey-area 7y ago
  required everyone to wear masks in public of any type (this is rather important Have any studies been done on this? It seems pretty tenuous to me and lots of assertions about mitigations (from drugs to masks) are being made just now without evidence.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    Yes. Lots of studies linked in https://medium.com/better-humans/whats-the-evidence-on-face-masks-5f3c27a18cc https://medium.com/better-humans/whats-the-evidence-on-face-.... Turns out stopping droplets helps slow the spread of a virus that spreads via droplets. Shocker, I know.
    - grey-area 7y ago
      Thanks for the link. The vast majority of the studies cited there are in fact in a hospital setting. I'm skeptical masks worn in the street are going to help more than distancing measures, though they'd probably help in crowded environments like public transport (along with hand washing).
swiley 7y ago
I just went to Whole Foods (hopefully for the last time in quite a while.) everyone there was wearing a mask (customers and employees) fear of shame be damned. Also hearing “Shiny Happy People” while everyone is literally up to their eyeballs in PPE afraid to be near each other is a weird experience.
- xamuel 7y ago
  "Shiny Happy People" might be more appropriate than it seems. Many consider the song to be an imitation of dystopian propaganda.
  - MattSayar 7y ago
    That's funny, considering: >“It’s a fruity pop song written for children. It just is what it is”, Michael Stipe told the BBC’s Andrew Marr in 2016.
    - xamuel 7y ago
      Artists don't always accurately describe what their works mean. John Lennon insisted that "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" has nothing to do with LSD :)
- chillacy 7y ago
  > fear of shame be damned I hope that starts to become more socially accepted now. The thing that's always stopped me from wearing my mask as early as February was all the news reports of people being assaulted for wearing a mask on a subway. Like no good deed goes unpunished.
prostheticvamp 7y ago
Just gotta like my nose in, as a medical professional involved in procuring PPE for my small health chain: We run into fraud and scammers trying to take advantage of our desperation on a daily basis. Probably about 20% of our supply leads. So, yeah, there’s a definite element of wariness - we don’t just take anything from anyone at random. Lives depend on us sourcing actual equipment, rather than squandering limited resources on falling for a scam. And, you know, not being the FBI, for many of us this falls to a lone harried admin plus-or-minus their boss talking it over and making a gut call before moving on to put out the next fire.

gamblor956 7y ago

You're definitely not calling the right hospitals. In LA, hospitals have been accepting donations of masks from people, and purchasing them from local companies. No bureaucracy involved. And it's now rare to see people not wearing masks in LA.

edge17 7y ago
I think he's trying to offer his supply channel to hospitals that are talking about being desperate for supplies. People keep talking about donations, but the reality is that this is a crisis of supplies, not a crisis of money. My experience matches the parent comment here.
- yellow_postit 7y ago
  Knowing OP is someone selling the wariness is all the more reasonable. Random internet stranger trying to sell masks, figuring out if they are legit or not is a valid concern before spending money.
  - edge17 7y ago
    That is correct, but again, the reality is that the whole supply chain comes from China and fake 3M masks also exist. Also, no one is telling the hospitals not to ask for samples and test the goods themselves. The problem is that the hospitals don't even understand what they're up against on the supply side, and they have an expectation that 'legit' masks will just show up. I've been knee deep in this stuff for the last two weeks or so, the article in this post is accurate from what I've seen on the supply side. This is also another accurate article - https://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2020/03/30/i-spent-a-day-in-the-coronavirus-driven-feeding-frenzy-of-n95-mask-sellers-and-buyers-and-this-is-what-i-learned/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2020/03/30/i-spent... One thing worth pointing out is the article points to the sheer number of supplies leaving the country due to hospitals being unable to pay quickly enough. All I can say is, the demand is real, the supply is constrained, and not all the 'random internet people' are scammers - a lot of them are people with very deep resources and relationships in China actually trying to do their part to bring PPE. In the end, donations aren't going to solve this problem. Reliable supply chains are, and reliable supply chains require that some small profit be made to cover material costs, cost of risk, cost of storage, etc.
- gamblor956 7y ago
  Kaiser California was part of an attempted $39 million scam related to masks and other medical equipment just a week ago. Luckily they did their due diligence and no money changed hands, but there are a lot of scammers out there claiming to have masks who can't actually back up their claims. If the OP actually has those masks, and can prove he owns the inventory and that they are what he claims they are, he wouldn't be having any issues selling them right now.
sieabahlpark 7y ago
What? I live in LA and the majority are not wearing masks. At least on the westside. It's very casual still in some areas. Thankfully I don't see mother's taking their kid to soccer practice still.
- jayd16 7y ago
  Went to the market today on the west side and it was probably 50-50 masks, maybe more masks than not. I think our sample sizes are just too low to draw exact numbers but its still much higher than last week.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- gamblor956 7y ago
  I haven't been to the Westside since they imposed Safer at Home, but east of the 405 at least half of the people are wearing masks, and in some neighborhoods almost everyone is.
yodsanklai 7y ago
Does it make sense to wear masks in the outside though? suppose I have a limited number of masks, should I keep them for indoor public spaces, such as public transportation or doctor's waiting room?
- prirun 7y ago
  According to this article, masks can be reused (and critically, retain their electrostatic charge) by baking in an oven for 30 minutes at 160 F or steaming for 3-10 minutes (this article says 3, the CDC site says 10 I think): https://utrf.tennessee.edu/information-faqs-performance-protection-sterilization-of-face-mask-materials/ https://utrf.tennessee.edu/information-faqs-performance-prot... The CDC recommends not reusing masks, but sometimes it may be necessary. Another option is to have 5 masks in a paper bag and rotate them every day. The virus should be dead after 5 days. Another option I read is to steam a mask in the microwave using a plastic bag with 60ml (6 tbsp) of water for 3-10 minutes once steam is generated. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/ppe-strategy/decontamination-reuse-respirators.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/ppe-strategy/d... I am only passing on information I read and am not qualified to judge its accuracy.

samcheng 7y ago

Hospitals do seem to graciously accept donations, even opened (half-used) boxes of masks. You can just drive up and hand them off. Second-tier healthcare facilities, such as elder care centers and rural clinics, are also desperate for PPE right now. We just drove up to the UCSF hospital and dropped off a couple hundred pounds of supplies. No fuss: https://www.rinse.com/blog/rinse/covid-19-medical-supply-drive https://www.rinse.com/blog/rinse/covid-19-medical-supply-dri... Here's an example organization with a long list of facilities accepting donated supplies: https://www.donateppe.org/ https://www.donateppe.org/ I'm sure it's harder to convince the terribly inefficient US health care bureaucracy to pay for this. I noticed our local Chinese American community, combating a worrisome rise in racism, has been active in the philanthropic distribution of masks. You might try raising funding that way, instead of through the bureaucracy. I've also noticed a reluctance to accept the Chinese KN95 standard. People don't trust it, for better or worse. I think they would rather have homemade cloth masks, to be honest. Not sure how you can change that perception. Best of luck in your efforts!

edge17 7y ago
The economic reality is that most of the chinese supply chain that creates most of the masks is KN95 because China mobilized their country for their needs first. Quality is definitely an issue, but the bureaucratic layers of many of the hospitals in the US are definitely protecting the business at the expense of the safety of front line workers. Most of them simply don't understand what is going on at the ground level of the supply chain.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  As someone who spends way too much time hanging around with cynical lawyers I am not surprised by the current state of affairs. We've spent the last 30yr using civil case law to heavily incentivize organizations to build process and follow that process even when it's stupid, push decision making higher up and remove the capacity for decisions making down low (like middle manager level) where they can happen fast. It's not that the people want to protect the business at the expense of patients but that the business itself is structured in a way that it's impossible for the people who make it up to do break protocol that says they have to meet X Y and Z criteria when sourcing supplies without it being a fire-able offense.

alexis_fr 7y ago

There will be another scandal with infected masks, it is bound to happen. At one point, a large percentage of the population is infected unknowingly, and manufacturing masks in a pure environment won’t be easy.

TylerE 7y ago
Unlikely. Lifespan on nonorganic surfaces is limited to a few days.
- alexis_fr 7y ago
  Some studies already say they survive 7 days on masks, and a flight is only a few hours. HN is really becoming an echo chamber where there is only one leading trend, downvoting to hell the various opinions, and it is really bad for HN’s ability to help entrepreneurs anticipate on trends.
  - ejstronge 7y ago
    Do you have a link to these studies? I haven’t heard of a study showing viability this far out (vs showing the presence of viral nuclei acids, which is not sufficient for infection)

m4rtink 7y ago

While not perfect (we could have definitely acted sooner) the Czech system of handling PPE distribution seems to have worked so far: - banned export of sanitizer and drugs early on - banned sale of FFP3 class respirators to anyone else than healthcare providers and the state - required everyone to wear masks in public of any type (this is rather important as it both prevents asymptomatic carriers from spreading the infection & remove the mask stigma by everyone having one) - this triggered a huge wave of basically everyone with a sewing machine & some fabric making masks, by now (~third week of masks) basically everyone is stocked and is quite easy to buy a had made mask online or get it from your local administration (there are now even some mask vending machines) - started an air bridge from China (various aircraft - from the government, chartered & NATO leased An-124s, planes appropriated from various airlines), so far 500+ tons of PPE and medical supplies have been acquired - material distribution is handled by the state (army, firefighters & sometimes even the police) to all the hospitals, care homes, for police, social workers, etc.

grey-area 7y ago
required everyone to wear masks in public of any type (this is rather important Have any studies been done on this? It seems pretty tenuous to me and lots of assertions about mitigations (from drugs to masks) are being made just now without evidence.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  Yes. Lots of studies linked in https://medium.com/better-humans/whats-the-evidence-on-face-masks-5f3c27a18cc https://medium.com/better-humans/whats-the-evidence-on-face-.... Turns out stopping droplets helps slow the spread of a virus that spreads via droplets. Shocker, I know.
  - grey-area 7y ago
    Thanks for the link. The vast majority of the studies cited there are in fact in a hospital setting. I'm skeptical masks worn in the street are going to help more than distancing measures, though they'd probably help in crowded environments like public transport (along with hand washing).

swiley 7y ago

I just went to Whole Foods (hopefully for the last time in quite a while.) everyone there was wearing a mask (customers and employees) fear of shame be damned. Also hearing “Shiny Happy People” while everyone is literally up to their eyeballs in PPE afraid to be near each other is a weird experience.

xamuel 7y ago
"Shiny Happy People" might be more appropriate than it seems. Many consider the song to be an imitation of dystopian propaganda.
- MattSayar 7y ago
  That's funny, considering: >“It’s a fruity pop song written for children. It just is what it is”, Michael Stipe told the BBC’s Andrew Marr in 2016.
  - xamuel 7y ago
    Artists don't always accurately describe what their works mean. John Lennon insisted that "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" has nothing to do with LSD :)
chillacy 7y ago
> fear of shame be damned I hope that starts to become more socially accepted now. The thing that's always stopped me from wearing my mask as early as February was all the news reports of people being assaulted for wearing a mask on a subway. Like no good deed goes unpunished.

prostheticvamp 7y ago

Just gotta like my nose in, as a medical professional involved in procuring PPE for my small health chain: We run into fraud and scammers trying to take advantage of our desperation on a daily basis. Probably about 20% of our supply leads. So, yeah, there’s a definite element of wariness - we don’t just take anything from anyone at random. Lives depend on us sourcing actual equipment, rather than squandering limited resources on falling for a scam. And, you know, not being the FBI, for many of us this falls to a lone harried admin plus-or-minus their boss talking it over and making a gut call before moving on to put out the next fire.