ZCanadian

I have to say, the more I see these, the more that i realize how "Fox News" is the ultimate oxymoron.

The USA is not only soaking up all global supply, but also using your defence procurement act to keep domestic production in the country. I don't blame you for the latter especially, although those plants were set up by companies to efficiently supply all of the Americas. By doing so, you are leaving your poor northern cousins in the lurch. But we'll survive. Just don't count on getting maple syrup and back bacon shipments from us any time soon!

In reality, 3M initiated a surge in PPE production back in January at the start of the epidemic in all of its plants worldwide. Bloomberg ran a story on this months ago. This was a plan devised after the SARS outbreak in 2003. They expanded capacity of N95 masks by bringing online all equipment including all idled lines and switch-overs where possible. Chinese plants were slow to come online because of their epidemic and also Lunar New Year, but others hit their marks quickly. That was intended to meet increased global demand. The two US production facilities normally make a combined 35 million masks a month. It is set to hit 50 million in the next few months. Your supply chain would be more than enough in most situations. Unless you want the government to invest in production facilities, you cannot have private enterprise at the ready to react to a once in a generation emergency of global scale! So, when an official who failed at his job by not having enough stocks available, criticizes a company that is doing what companies do, he's just trying to save his own arse!