i've been sourcing kn95's from family friends who are higher ups at the handful of CDC NIOSH NPPTL certified manufacturers. they are reporting that their raw ma

i've been sourcing kn95's from family friends who are higher ups at the handful of CDC NIOSH NPPTL certified manufacturers. they are reporting that their raw material costs have skyrocketed from what use to cost them 20k per ton to 400k per ton (RMB). another problem is due to the limited number of actual manufacturers that got the CDC/CE certifications long ago, they have established brands (ie: Maskin) that now, has knockoffs/counterfeits of which is sowing mistrust even for the certified manufacturers. lastly, especially in America... we keep biting the hand that is feeding us in the sense that we are dependent on China's ability to mass produce KN95 masks but inevitably, when there are counterfeits as people cash in on the craze, "China" as a whole gets a bad rep. this week, China issued an entire ban on mask exports. if you had problems getting masks already, it's about to get almost impossible to get them as there are plenty of other countries that would gladly receive shipments. even so, i'm flabbergasted at the price the US government is reportedly reselling masks to states for between $5.50-7.50 per KN95/N95 mask... my current cost to the states is around $3.50/mask (after accounting for lost shipments) and i'm not getting any sort of big volume.