Monday, April 20, 2020

Masks in Germany

Focus carried a particularly good piece this morning on the mask situation in Germany.

In the past week, a shipment of 80-million masks arrived, and there's some belief that it'll make a big difference.

The problem here though?  The Health Minister (Spahn) made it blunt.....there is no 'guard' at the door to really inventory and ensure these are quality masks.  For the most part, they are relying on the distribution chain to work.

Setting up the German market to make it's masks?  That's the funny part of the discussion.....almost all of the masks you see.....were made in China.  So there's an effort going on, and what the Health Minister says is that by August (a good 75 days away).....they will finally have around fifty-odd companies in Germany who make the masks.  The weekly production cycle?  For the high-quality FFP-2 type.....10-million.  For the one-time use type?  Forty-million. 

Costs?  Never discussed.  Lets be honest, whatever you were paying last year to the Chinese (before all this crap occurred)....to get a German-made mask....it's probably in the 2.5-times cost level (my humble opinion).  But here's the other side of the discussion.....you can be about 99-percent sure that you can open a box of 300 masks, and not a single one of them will be a failed product or be a counterfeit type. 

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