How Decades of Offshoring Led to a Mask Shortage in a Pandemic

How Decades of Offshoring Led to a Mask Shortage in a Pandemic

4 years ago
Anonymous $9CO2RSACsf

https://www.wired.com/story/decades-offshoring-led-mask-shortage-pandemic/

If you can reach him, Gus Nasrallah, president and CEO of manufacturing equipment supplier Sharpertek in Pontiac, Michigan, can sell you a machine that cranks out the N95 face masks desperately needed by health workers treating Covid-19 patients. It will cost you $250,000 or more—but don’t expect it soon. “We’re telling them six-month delivery.”

Keith Hayward, managing director of specialty fabric maker Monadnock Nonwovens in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, is also deluged with phone calls. Among other products, his company makes meltblown fabric that provides the ultrafine filtration in N95 masks. He estimates Monadnock has been getting upwards of 200 calls a day. “Demand is unprecedented,” he says.