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> facemasks were plentiful in China but almost impossible to get in the US That wasn't a coincidence. > Just after the lockdown of Wuhan in January, the same
by ceilingcorner 6y ago
> facemasks were plentiful in China but almost impossible to get in the US
That wasn't a coincidence.
> Just after the lockdown of Wuhan in January, the same week the U.S. confirmed its first case of the novel coronavirus, Chinese civic organizations in dozens of countries on five continents began buying masks and other personal protective equipment.
> In Nagoya, Japan, volunteers drove to pharmacies and bought 520,000 masks in three days, according to an account carried by Xinhua, China’s official news agency. By Jan. 26, the head of a Chinese chamber of commerce in Toronto, just back from a trip to Beijing, started making calls to members telling them they needed to join the effort, the report said. Almost 100 people drove to Toronto—some overnight, on icy roads—and were dispatched to buy supplies. Planes out of Kenya and Milan were packed with boxes and suitcases filled with PPE bound for China. An overseas Chinese association in Argentina sent some 25,000 masks within a week of receiving the request.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-17/behind-china-s-epic-dash-for-ppe-that-left-the-world-short-on-masks https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-17/behind-ch...
- reaperducer 6y agoIn Nagoya, Japan, volunteers drove to pharmacies and bought 520,000 masks in three days, Seems like it was a global phenomenon. There were articles in the local newspapers where I live (US) interviewing Chinese expats who were buying all the PPE they could find and shipping them home. While it put other countries in a bad position, I think it was probably a perfectly normal thing for an expat to do since people didn't know how bad it would get outside of China at the time. Most times there is a disaster somewhere in the world, the people from that country who live elsewhere try to help.
- ceilingcorner 6y agoNumerous government-affiliated organizations spearheaded the effort. That is far beyond some expats individually being concerned. Keep in mind that this was also right around the time the WHO reported there was “no human to human transmission” based on data from the CCP.
- tharne 6y agoI've noticed that folks even hinting at the fact that China could be doing something unethical in a given situation will often get quickly downvoted on HN.
- zeroimpl 6y agoVarious groups donated masks to China in January, what's your point? Outside of China, nobody was talking about needing masks until March. I'm pretty sure the author is talking about the fact that by March, China had already produced tons of new masks but average people in the US couldn't access them because they were being reserved for health care workers.