Coronavirus: Sugical Mask Production

With coronavirus spreading across the globe, one item in high demand is the surgical/N95 mask.

Washington Post recently had an article on the topic:

During the 2009 H1N1 swine flu pandemic, demand for N95 respirators and face masks spiked dramatically . . . U.S. officials had to dip into the government’s secret cache in the Strategic National Stockpile and release about 100 million respirators and face masks to states 

. . . Routine annual production in the United States has been estimated to be 1.5 billion N95 respirators and 3.6 billion surgical masks, according to a 2017 report in the journal Health Security. The report estimated that 1.7 billion to 3.5 billion N95 respirators and 100 million to 400 million surgical masks would be needed to protect health-care workers in the event of a severe influenza pandemic . . But CDC recently recommended that health-care facilities consider strategies to conserve their N95 supplies. U.S. officials are also talking daily with about a dozen protective equipment manufacturers and 20 distributors that sell products in the United States 

. . . One reason there aren’t more U.S. firms that manufacture medical masks: The profit margin is low, and imports from Mexico and China are much cheaper (this has been a particular focus of Bannon and Peter Navarro, one of Trump’s top trade advisers). 



Basically, if the coronavirus hits the United States our production of N95 masks on an annual basis (1.5 billion) would not be enough to meet the demands from health-care workers (1.7 billion to 3.5 billion). It would also appear that the government's secret cache would not even put a dent in demand (100 million). Admittedly, we don't how many N95 masks are currently in hospital inventories.

The South China Morning Post had this to say on February 16th (admittedly dated and so demand might be dropping as China's official coronavirus infections are dropping off):

Chinese mask makers are currently operating at 76 per cent capacity, which puts daily production at 15.2 million masks based on the industry’s reported capacity to produce 20 million pieces a day, Cong Liang, an NDRC official, said at a press conference in Beijing on Tuesday. Daily demand, however, is estimated to be between 50 and 60 million units during the outbreak, according to Chinese media reports citing mainland mask manufacturers.

China has also only been able to make 200,000 N95 respirators per day because they require more sophisticated technology and materials to produce. 

. . . Texas-based Prestige Ameritech made 87 per cent of the masks for the US market in the 1990s, until cheaper Chinese supplies – which now account for half of America’s total supply – hit the market, Bowen said. Now, in an unexpected twist, his company was for the first time shipping masks to China – 1 million pieces over the last two weeks.

So even China is (or was) running short. Note that they currently are making 15.2 million masks a day, but only 200,000 N95 masks per day, which is what is needed by those in the medical profession dealing with the coronavirus. The Texas-based Prestige Ameritech is also mentioned in the Washington Post article. They shipped 1 million units to China. At what point does the United States ban export sales as the product will be needed in America?

As a side note, here's a dire quote from Bill Gates on Geekwire (Feb 14):

“This is a huge challenge,” Gates said. “We’ve always known that the potential for either a naturally caused or intentionally caused pandemic is one of the few things that could disrupt health systems, economies and cause more than 10 million excess deaths.” 

The article mentions that Gates also was talking about Saharan Africa and Southern Asia. I am assuming; however, that the 10 million deaths was a worldwide quote. Wikipedia indicates that Southern Asia includes India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh.