Masking Up for America

We've been careful about following masking precautions, but getting properly fitting masks, either N95 or surgical-type, has been difficult, particularly if you want to buy anything other than the Chinese-made masks that are of uncertain provenance or effectiveness. Until I read this article from the New York Times, I had assumed that there simply weren't any being made in the USA. The frustrating thing this article reveals is that there are serveral US manufacturers who geared up to make proper masks, but have been unable to "crack the markets" because purchasing managers for the big healthcare companies and retail providers find it much easier to just buy from a single manufacturer, usually in China, especially if they can save a penny or two per mask. While we can't individually change the behavior of those companies other than to complain about it, we were able to put some of our money where our mouths (and noses) will be by purchasing masks from one of the companies in that article, DemeTECH.

( Mask )

I hope that the NYT article might get the attention of some major company willing to at least try to sell American-made merchandise meeting American standards alongside foreign-manufactured material whose protective ability is more uncertain.