Not sure what Freud has to do with this, but there is plenty of blame to go around for the PPE shortage.
Freud? I dont know what that means.
The PPE shortage hit a long time ago. The number of ordinary citizens gobbling up masks at that point was small and did not really affect medical supply, at least not in the way some are portraying it.
The real shortage was caused because china literally bought back tons of masks that they had shipped to us and no longer shipped them to us. They were getting pallets upon pallets shipped back to them. Some guy stocking supplies in his basement might go clear the shelves at CVS, but then that CVS never got redelivered because the supply line had been cut already. A month ago Lowes had already discontinued them on their website. They were listed, but said not available online and limited quantity in stores. The LDS church sent a whole plane full of them to China back in january. Those would be nice right now.
Hospitals knew these things were on backorder before anybody else. What did they do? They went to the media and blamed ordinary citizens buying one day supply for a nurse treating this and claimed they were useless and that people didnt know how to put them on. I mean jesus christ. Its a freaking mask with elastic and a metal piece you bend over your nose.
This was back in February when all those articles started hitting.
These things arent hard to make if everybody in America wanted them a month ago(which they should but of course thanks medical folks for convincing the bulk of the population they arent helpful or super complicated), hospitals would be flush with them because tons of businesses would already have adjusted to meet demand. Instead they only now are ramping up because the demand is so high from hospitals and states begging for them.
The squeaky wheel gets the grease. If you want more grease, you dont tell people that their wheel doesnt matter, so they dont need grease and hope you can scoop up the leftovers.
I mean look at what is happening with hand sanitizer. Distillers all over the country are stepping up and even
donating it. A company I used to work for just made 8000 gallons of the stuff to donate and will then start to sell it. They sell isopropyl alcohol for the glass cutting business to some customers that are now shut down. So they can sit on those gallons now or do something with it.
Why? Because
everybody wants it.