Quote (fender @ 15 May 2020 16:08)
I'm not disagreeing with what he says, but just for context: the WHO itself had argued against the use of household masks in everyday situations until mid-April; and almost all European countries made the same mistake of not being prepared in terms of (FFP2+) mask production.
Even Germany, which was efficient at containing the virus, has posted very low death numbers and is considered a role-model by many American pundits, made this mistake. In February, when anxiousness about the virus increased, our Federal Minister of Health said "there is no need to worry, we are very well prepared". Four weeks later, we were on lockdown and suffered from a bad shortage of masks. It took weeks until our government signed contracts with producers that guarantee them to buy a certain amount of masks, so that they finally had the security they need to ramp up their production on a large scale. Similar story in France, the UK, Scandinavia etc.
So yes, the Trump administration was ignorant and failed in its preparation of masks - but so was everyone else, even countries which got through this crisis much better than the US.
This post was edited by Black XistenZ on May 15 2020 08:26am