> <i>These businesses must overcome the ingrained purchasing habits of hospital systems, medical supply distributors and state governments.</i><p>I’m guessing this is the real crux of the problem. They’re trying to sell to some of the most glacial organizations on planet.<p>The bigger the organization, the slower it moves. Purchasing cycles can take anywhere from 6 months to YEARS if you’re talking big business or government.<p>This is also why B2B and B2G are such lucrative markets to be in.<p>Having a bunch of lazy, stumbling giants with basically unlimited money as your clients is the holy grail. Once they’ve been sold, they literally CANNOT stop buying from you if even they wanted to. It’d be a year before they could even get another supplier approved! Talk about low churn.
> The problem is getting consumers to their retail websites. At the moment, anyone trying to buy N95 masks on Google Shopping or Facebook Marketplace is greeted with a blank page; on Amazon, a search for N95s yields a welter of vendors hawking KN95 masks, a Chinese-made equivalent that researchers say is less effective.<p>> “How is it that you can spread conspiracy theories on Facebook, but we can’t sell N95 masks to the millions of Americans who need them right now?” Mr. Brown asked. “I can understand Facebook not wanting to sell masks made by some guy in his garage, but these masks meet strict N.I.O.S.H. guidelines.”<p>I can more understand the first half of the article, about ingrained purchasing processes in hospitals etc. leaving newcomers with unbought supply, but this is nuts. All the crap that Amazon <i>does</i> show if you search 'mask' or 'respirator' over the last year, and they refuse to list genuine stuff?<p>I still have a disposable FFP3 (UK/EU N99 equivalent I believe) from a couple of years before the pandemic, it was £1.12ea or much less in packs. Currently I'd have to pay 10x that for a shitty piece of ill-fitting cloth. (It's probably technically past its shelf life, but it can't be worse than fabric that never met any filtration specification.)
I thought I was Chicken Little buying my first masks (P100 respirators) in January 2020. I bought a couple more fancy ones in Feb. Days later, decent masks disappeared—those had to last me the rest of 2020.
Around November(?), Powecom masks became FDA approved and I've bought plenty through <a href="https://bonafidemasks.com" rel="nofollow">https://bonafidemasks.com</a>. There are coupons floating around (try slickdeals). The headband style ones are a little more $, but provide a better seal. I also like that they have black as an option. FYI I use a BYD surgical masks ($8 for 50 at Costco) on top of these and really try to keep those to single use. Don't forget to use germ-x or whatever after touching the outside of your mask—static electricity is supposed to help particles stick to the outside (hence a fresh surgical for the outside layer).
> a search for N95s yields a welter of vendors hawking KN95 masks, a Chinese-made equivalent that researchers say is less effective<p>Any source for that?<p>From what I've seen, N95, KN95, FFP2 and others are pretty much equivalent. There are some small differences but none that significantly affect the level of protection. There are certainly differences between manufacturers, and maybe there are more fake KN95 than there are fake N95, but that's not an issue with the certification.
Interesting, I am not in the US so I thought of checking if it is a new company but it was founded in 2000! [0]
How come that they are 20+ years in medical business and they do not have established connections with hospitals and other retailers to sell these masks?<p>[0] <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/company/0692237D:US" rel="nofollow">https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/company/0692237D:US</a>
I purchased some at Home Depot recently for $4/pc (they had plenty in stock, Seattle area). The company mentioned here is selling [0] them for $3.75/pc, but only in quantities of 20 ($75).<p>I wish N95’s did not necessitate the second strap, but hey, it’s better than COVID!<p>[0] <a href="https://shop.demetech.us/collections/n95-respirator-masks/products/n95-respirator-masks-fold-style" rel="nofollow">https://shop.demetech.us/collections/n95-respirator-masks/pr...</a><p>Edit: for the record, I think the ones I got at Home Depot are nicer. They have a foam cushion on the bridge of the nose and a super sturdy “pinch”.
This guy isn’t hustling as hard as he should be. If you can’t get deals because of the old boys club of buyers and suppliers you gotta do some guerrilla marketing.<p>Learn which hospitals are struggling with masks. Lease a bunch of U-Haul/Ryder trucks and fill them with masks. Park them in front of the hospitals with massive banners on the side: “50,000 made in USA n95 masks inside. Call 555-555-5555”<p>Pretty soon you’ll be selling every mask you make.<p>Or start selling direct to consumer using marketplaces like Amazon.
Is there still a shortage in the US?<p>Here in Germany (we need surgical masks or (K)N95/FFP2 masks to go to the store or for public transport) they have been available easily for a while. Prices for Made in Germany ones were (and are) high, but getting Chinese-made masks shipped from EU or German warehouses was easy, and now one of our discounters (Lidl) started selling them for 0.88€ ($1.07) per piece.<p>I bought 20 FFP2 and 50 surgical masks in a pack from a German medical equipment importer for 25€ ($30).
Sorry maybe I missed this from the article, but why not sell to common people through Amazon? In some Asian countries, it's freely available from online marketplaces. The price now down to 1/10 of what it was during the early days of Covid, but since mask is mandatory whenever you go out, it's like staple.
Their shop (<a href="https://shop.demetech.us" rel="nofollow">https://shop.demetech.us</a>) ships only to United States, Canada and Mexico... so I am unable to buy it the easy way...
Fucking hell. Do we have to dig up General Groves and Oppenheimer to find people with sufficient organizing skills to get the COVID-19 Jobs done?<p>What the hell's gone wrong with the US? (If this were the early/mid 1940s then the AXIS powers would have won!)
> <i>Another obstacle comes from companies like Facebook and Google, which banned the sale and advertising of N95 masks in an effort to thwart profiteers from diverting vital medical gear needed by frontline medical workers.</i><p>In their desire to wield censorship to avoid bad PR, these companies are actually hindering some of the people doing the best work (and taking on their own financial risk!) to help. This is despicable.<p>Why are large corporations so cowardly?
I do not really understand why hospital workers and others that use masks daily for whole shift still use single-use N95 masks and not half-face respirators with reusable filters, like 3M 7500 (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5zbj3_ezqE" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5zbj3_ezqE</a>). They are more comfortable and fit much better.
So, N95 masks are made by people wearing surgical masks [0]?<p>[0]: <a href="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/02/09/science/09VIRUS-MASKS4/merlin_183326406_f64af596-5698-427d-836c-90db20bf3226-superJumbo.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/02/09/science/09VIRUS-M...</a>
In Canada KN95 masks are easily available but nobody in the medical community will use them. I have friends going to work with vulnerable populations using nearly worthless surgical masks because there "aren't enough N95s" even though KN95 is basically the same spec.
I have noticed that Google Shopping is blocking results for "N95 mask" in the UK, making it more difficult to find retailers which sell them. On the other hand there are thousands upon thousands of results on eBay/Amazon, most of which cannot be trusted.
No shortage at any of the hospitals I've worked in over the past several months.
A regular surgical mask is enough for the average street walker, and a month ago in NY there were people handing boxes of them out to people in the streets for free.
I searched for the N95 masks online for months without success - Ordered 20pc box from demetech and the us mask company referenced in the article within 5 mins of reading it.
I recently ordered N95 masks from <a href="http://clinicalsuppliesusa.com/" rel="nofollow">http://clinicalsuppliesusa.com/</a> (no affiliation)<p>I actually didn't know they were even available, after being told by officials to use cloth masks for 10+ months I stopped looking. I was surprised how easy and available they were.<p>EDIT: As others have pointed out their website is down. It was working as recently as 1 month ago. Sorry!
> Another obstacle comes from companies like Facebook and Google, which banned the sale and advertising of N95 masks<p>If this is true, these companies are responsible for thousands of deaths, and should be prosecuted.
There are a lot of questions to answer about masks. Who makes them, how many, what price they are sold for and who to? These question are political.<p>Early on in the pandemic, around April, selling masks for $7 was considered price gouging [0] and $1.27 was the politically fair price. The tech companies are already facing various government investigations for being greedy capitalists; I can very much see the wisdom of whoever decided to stay away from masks.<p>I'm watching with interest what happens to these small time mask makers. Their fate will influence the behaviour of people who anticipate the next crisis.<p>[0] <a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/04/01/coronavirus-3m-n95-masks-price-gouging/" rel="nofollow">https://theintercept.com/2020/04/01/coronavirus-3m-n95-masks...</a>