5 ms·

> 6 months or more to build, by which time there may be no demand Until the next pandemic. We can spend hundreds of billions on national defense, but N95 mask

> 6 months or more to build, by which time there may be no demand Until the next pandemic. We can spend hundreds of billions on national defense, but N95 mask machines for protection in a pandemic is where we draw the line?

Robotbeat 6y ago
>> 6 months or more to build, by which time there may be no demand It's September. We (the informed public) knew that the pandemic was likely going to be a major problem at this time in February, which is 7 months ago. The government probably knew a month before that. We've already had a lot more than 6 months. And I really suspect it could be done faster in an emergency situation where you can pay all the workers overtime.
- umanwizard 6y ago
  “The government” isn’t a person. It can’t know things. It’s a complex, chaotic system of various people with competing interests who know things at different times and have power over different things.
  - selectodude 6y ago
    Which is why we elect leaders of government who have more power to direct the internal machinations of government than we do directly.
- ryandrake 6y ago
  Also, based on our leadership (and the likely reelection of that leadership) and how many Americans are refusing to follow basic sensible health guidance, this pandemic is going to go on for at least another year, maybe multiple years. It makes sense to start now if the payout is 6 months later.
  - Consultant32452 6y ago
    Amortization on these facilities is not 6 months. It's years, likely a decade or more. There's only two companies in the whole world with the expertise to make these machines. And the machines have a high failure rate. Every nation on the planet is demanding more capacity. Do you believe that the very tiny number of people who are capable of expanding production capacity are just sitting on their laurels? This is categorically different than building something like a tank where most of the parts can be built in any machine shop. You have to assume that every country on the planet, not just the US, has the same problem you're ascribing to the US. That they could just order new production capacity into existence, but they are choosing not to.
uptown 6y ago
> Until the next pandemic. We can spend hundreds of billions on national defense, but N95 mask machines for protection in a pandemic is where we draw the line? Or we could allocate money to PPE and instead spend it on defense: "Pentagon used taxpayer money meant for masks and swabs to make jet engine parts and body armor" https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/09/22/covid-funds-pentagon/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/09/22/covid-fun...
- linuxftw 6y ago
  I read it differently. "Congress, knowing they have almost zero control over defense expenditures, are aghast to find out the DoD spent money how the DoD sees fit, rather than what Congress hoped they would spend the money on." This is just like the bailout money. No meaningful way to control how it's spent, that's why AIG all got golden parachutes. It's a body of dumb people making decisions in haste at best, or entirely corrupt (my vote).
- apacheCamel 6y ago
  I would really like to consider my mask body armor but I am having a really hard time connecting the two.
- TuringNYC 6y ago
  Even the term "defense" is so misused. I'd consider N95 masks a sort of defense, just as much as tanks and battleships. Masks are not a boondoggle for a possible future war, they are the defense for our current one (against COVID)
dragontamer 6y ago
In the 102 years since the 1918 Influenza pandemic, there has been World War I, World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War, Iraqi Storm, Afghanistan, and Iraq War 2. I'd say by pragmatic measures, we're more likely to use our guns than to come across a pandemic like what we're seeing today. And yeah, we had pandemic scares: H1N1 (aka: Spanish Flu part 2), The 1960s flu, Ebola. But none of them them really were an issue to this degree.
- kevinmchugh 6y ago
  MERS, SARS, MRSA, HIV Perhaps we use the guns more because we have them available.
  - dragontamer 6y ago
    N95 masks don't seem to help vs HIV or MRSA, so I'm not quite sure why you're mentioning them. If you're worried about an HIV outbreak, it seems like we have enough condoms to protect against that. I think my general point is that our N95 mask production is enough, so long as we save masks and replenish the stockpile. Given the hundred years of pandemics, this COVID19 one is the worst since the 1918 flu by pretty much all measures. Its your canonical black-swan event. > Perhaps we use the guns more because we have them available. Did we run out of masks during H1N1, Avian Flu, Ebola, SARS, or any other pandemic before COVID19 ? Its been years since those examples, so maybe I don't remember exactly. H1N1 was a big deal, but it wasn't "hospitals ran out of equipment" big deal from my memory.
    - roywiggins 6y ago
      We didn't run out of masks during H1N1 because we had a decent stockpile. We never replenished that stockpile. From the article: > the H1N1 flu epidemic depleted 85 million N95s from the national stockpile — and the supply was never replenished. In 2013, 2014, 2016 and 2017, public health officials published alarming reports warning of a “massive gap” in what remained. COVID-19 is not a black swan. > “The Black Swan” was meant to explain why, in a networked world, we need to change business practices and social norms—not, as he recently told me, to provide “a cliché for any bad thing that surprises us.” Besides, the pandemic was wholly predictable—he, like Bill Gates, Laurie Garrett, and others, had predicted it—a white swan if ever there was one. “We issued our warning that, effectively, you should kill it in the egg,” Taleb told Bloomberg. Governments “did not want to spend pennies in January; now they are going to spend trillions.” https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-pandemic-isnt-a-black-swan-but-a-portent-of-a-more-fragile-global-system https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-pandemic-is... The mask shortage isn't even a black swan, it was both predictable and predicted. > The trade group for manufacturers of personal protective equipment in mid-2009 urged “immediate action” to restock N95 masks. The International Safety Equipment Association warned of “significant shortages” if another pandemic caused demand for masks to surge. > A nonprofit representing public health agencies, the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO), echoed industry’s appeal in a 2010 report funded by the federal government, recommending the repository of masks be “replenished for future events.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/face-masks-in-national-stockpile-have-not-been-substantially-replenished-since-2009/2020/03/10/57e57316-60c9-11ea-8baf-519cedb6ccd9_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/face-masks-in-...

Robotbeat 6y ago

>> 6 months or more to build, by which time there may be no demand It's September. We (the informed public) knew that the pandemic was likely going to be a major problem at this time in February, which is 7 months ago. The government probably knew a month before that. We've already had a lot more than 6 months. And I really suspect it could be done faster in an emergency situation where you can pay all the workers overtime.

umanwizard 6y ago
“The government” isn’t a person. It can’t know things. It’s a complex, chaotic system of various people with competing interests who know things at different times and have power over different things.
- selectodude 6y ago
  Which is why we elect leaders of government who have more power to direct the internal machinations of government than we do directly.
ryandrake 6y ago
Also, based on our leadership (and the likely reelection of that leadership) and how many Americans are refusing to follow basic sensible health guidance, this pandemic is going to go on for at least another year, maybe multiple years. It makes sense to start now if the payout is 6 months later.
- Consultant32452 6y ago
  Amortization on these facilities is not 6 months. It's years, likely a decade or more. There's only two companies in the whole world with the expertise to make these machines. And the machines have a high failure rate. Every nation on the planet is demanding more capacity. Do you believe that the very tiny number of people who are capable of expanding production capacity are just sitting on their laurels? This is categorically different than building something like a tank where most of the parts can be built in any machine shop. You have to assume that every country on the planet, not just the US, has the same problem you're ascribing to the US. That they could just order new production capacity into existence, but they are choosing not to.

uptown 6y ago

> Until the next pandemic. We can spend hundreds of billions on national defense, but N95 mask machines for protection in a pandemic is where we draw the line? Or we could allocate money to PPE and instead spend it on defense: "Pentagon used taxpayer money meant for masks and swabs to make jet engine parts and body armor" https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/09/22/covid-funds-pentagon/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/09/22/covid-fun...

linuxftw 6y ago
I read it differently. "Congress, knowing they have almost zero control over defense expenditures, are aghast to find out the DoD spent money how the DoD sees fit, rather than what Congress hoped they would spend the money on." This is just like the bailout money. No meaningful way to control how it's spent, that's why AIG all got golden parachutes. It's a body of dumb people making decisions in haste at best, or entirely corrupt (my vote).
apacheCamel 6y ago
I would really like to consider my mask body armor but I am having a really hard time connecting the two.
TuringNYC 6y ago
Even the term "defense" is so misused. I'd consider N95 masks a sort of defense, just as much as tanks and battleships. Masks are not a boondoggle for a possible future war, they are the defense for our current one (against COVID)

dragontamer 6y ago

In the 102 years since the 1918 Influenza pandemic, there has been World War I, World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War, Iraqi Storm, Afghanistan, and Iraq War 2. I'd say by pragmatic measures, we're more likely to use our guns than to come across a pandemic like what we're seeing today. And yeah, we had pandemic scares: H1N1 (aka: Spanish Flu part 2), The 1960s flu, Ebola. But none of them them really were an issue to this degree.

kevinmchugh 6y ago
MERS, SARS, MRSA, HIV Perhaps we use the guns more because we have them available.
- dragontamer 6y ago
  N95 masks don't seem to help vs HIV or MRSA, so I'm not quite sure why you're mentioning them. If you're worried about an HIV outbreak, it seems like we have enough condoms to protect against that. I think my general point is that our N95 mask production is enough, so long as we save masks and replenish the stockpile. Given the hundred years of pandemics, this COVID19 one is the worst since the 1918 flu by pretty much all measures. Its your canonical black-swan event. > Perhaps we use the guns more because we have them available. Did we run out of masks during H1N1, Avian Flu, Ebola, SARS, or any other pandemic before COVID19 ? Its been years since those examples, so maybe I don't remember exactly. H1N1 was a big deal, but it wasn't "hospitals ran out of equipment" big deal from my memory.
  - roywiggins 6y ago
    We didn't run out of masks during H1N1 because we had a decent stockpile. We never replenished that stockpile. From the article: > the H1N1 flu epidemic depleted 85 million N95s from the national stockpile — and the supply was never replenished. In 2013, 2014, 2016 and 2017, public health officials published alarming reports warning of a “massive gap” in what remained. COVID-19 is not a black swan. > “The Black Swan” was meant to explain why, in a networked world, we need to change business practices and social norms—not, as he recently told me, to provide “a cliché for any bad thing that surprises us.” Besides, the pandemic was wholly predictable—he, like Bill Gates, Laurie Garrett, and others, had predicted it—a white swan if ever there was one. “We issued our warning that, effectively, you should kill it in the egg,” Taleb told Bloomberg. Governments “did not want to spend pennies in January; now they are going to spend trillions.” https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-pandemic-isnt-a-black-swan-but-a-portent-of-a-more-fragile-global-system https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-pandemic-is... The mask shortage isn't even a black swan, it was both predictable and predicted. > The trade group for manufacturers of personal protective equipment in mid-2009 urged “immediate action” to restock N95 masks. The International Safety Equipment Association warned of “significant shortages” if another pandemic caused demand for masks to surge. > A nonprofit representing public health agencies, the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO), echoed industry’s appeal in a 2010 report funded by the federal government, recommending the repository of masks be “replenished for future events.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/face-masks-in-national-stockpile-have-not-been-substantially-replenished-since-2009/2020/03/10/57e57316-60c9-11ea-8baf-519cedb6ccd9_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/face-masks-in-...