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It’s also a political issue in the US. I’m sure whatever supply issues could be sorted out if masks and maga hats were compatible

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What is your hypothesis for why the UK, Germany, France, Russia, China, etc. have not been able to simply dictate sufficient capacity? Even if we assume the US is going to be uniquely awful in this regard, we could just buy from those countries if they had all been able to dictate capacity. They haven't.

I'm not aware of any shortage of masks in the UK now. There was at the start. You can buy a pack of 10 FFP2 masks (the EU equivalent of N95) on Amazon right now (ships from Germany): https://smile.amazon.co.uk/medisana-Respiratory-Protection-3...

Perhaps they've not got the US certification and therefore US hospitals can't legally use them? Doesn't stop anyone buying some for their family though.

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