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Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS!



They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!

https://t.co/UxZRwxxKL9 — U.S. Surgeon General (@Surgeon_General) February 29, 2020

It is perfectly rational to purchase protective equipment for yourself and your family if it is legal and available. After all, if you don’t purchase these items, someone else will.

If governments wanted to secure a supply for health-care workers, they could have purchased them in bulk when they were still available, or mandated that stores stop selling them to the public and make them available to the health-care system. Instead, the Canadian government sent 16 tonnes of protective equipment, including masks, to China.

And now, it’s too late. Very few masks remain available. Before the pandemic, China produced approximately half of the world’s medical masks. But in the current circumstances, the Chinese are keeping them in their own country. This is contributing to a global shortage, and highlighting our dependence on other countries.

Photo by Christinne Muschi/Reuters

Mike Bowen is the vice-president of Texas-based Prestige Ameritech, one of a few companies still making medical masks in the United States. He said in an interview with NPR that, as of March 5, he had received requests for 1.5 billion masks.

What this means is that there simply are not enough masks in North America to get us through this pandemic. What we needed to do was to ramp up the local production of masks months ago. Now, governments are playing catch-up and blaming citizens for their own mistakes.

Individuals who purchased masks are now being told they should donate them to hospitals, where they can be used by the health-care workers who need them most. I agree: people who are hoarding unused masks should absolutely consider donating them, if hospitals are able to accept such donations. But it’s worth noting that it isn’t exactly straightforward for hospitals to ensure the masks have not been used, infected or soiled after they’ve been in the possession of a civilian.