When this thing dies down we’re going to find massive amounts of unused supplies in the government’s possession that could have been used by many other businesses/organizations/groups in need.

As someone who works in the industry I can tell you DuPont (Tyvek clothing), 3M (disposable and reusable respirators), and Honeywell (reusable respirators) are exclusively supplying the government and healthcare at this time. These are being stockpiled all across the country. My company and all other industrial distributors likely won’t get product for months, which means our customers won’t get them for months.

I can also tell you my disposable respirator factory in China has been instructed by their government (not sure if it’s local or federal) to not ship respirators to the United States. I have a call with them to figure out a way around that.

There is a massive shortage of disposable SMS clothing used by many healthcare providers (dialysis, plasma, and healthcare centers). The manufacturers who make the large parent rolls of SMS material are making material for masks instead. Supposedly many people in China have purchased machines to make surgical masks from home, and they are making $500 USD a day.

Malaysian disposable glove vendors (60% of all disposable gloves are made in Malaysia) are only allowed to produce at 50% capacity for the next several weeks due to government guidelines. My hope is many of the factories ignore the guidelines and produce at 100%. Otherwise, the global shortage of nitrile and latex gloves will be exacerbated.

While we need to take this pandemic seriously we don’t need to overreact. Stockpiling supplies is leaving critical businesses empty-handed.

Whew. Thanks for letting me unload my work stress.