I think one of the hallmarks of great leadership is to inspire people to see beyond barriers. Melt-blown fabric is not likely to be the only or even the biggest hurdle.
Maybe it will take months/years to go from zero to production quantity/quality no matter how hard we try or how well we organize. And maybe by the time that production capacity is active the market will be flooded by PPE from China (let's hope). Yet I would still rather be over-prepared and with people actively productive compared to behind the ball with people sat at home.
Maybe I'm just tired of the government telling us to be patient while we continue to hear reports like this. I want someone to tell us how to be proactive.
Hospitals are looking themselves how to fill the gap while supply of PPE comes back. Here's a an example of a tutorial for masks made using readily available tools: https://enmed.tamu.edu/diymasks/
There are many other tutorials online from various sources which use different machines (sewing machine, 3d printers, etc), so people can improvise based on what they have.
The PDF shows detailed price breakdown for materials of ~$5/mask and estimates 10 minutes per mask, since of course it's diy, there's a lot of warning labels, but it's better than nothing. If people can produce ~40 masks per day using basic tools, this can scale based on the availability of raw materials and tools.
Maybe it will take months/years to go from zero to production quantity/quality no matter how hard we try or how well we organize. And maybe by the time that production capacity is active the market will be flooded by PPE from China (let's hope). Yet I would still rather be over-prepared and with people actively productive compared to behind the ball with people sat at home.
Maybe I'm just tired of the government telling us to be patient while we continue to hear reports like this. I want someone to tell us how to be proactive.