[hef19898]

Especially the logistics oriented companies are incredibly important. Flexport, Medina's, Osh.

If wonder why, the German government (procurement was handled by the military procurement agency and a department of German customs) "lost" a suppliers shipment of 6 million FFP2 masks (or 3 million, numbers are not really reliable so far) in Kenia. For everyone wondering why they have been shipped througj Africa, welcome to the club. I have no idea. But it seems logistics was handled by the supplier.

Having control over your supply chain, from sourcing through distribution, is critical right now.

Good to see YC has some of such companies in their portfolio.

[seanhunter]

That Kenya facemask story looks highly dubious and likely to be fake. The main source seems to be rt.com. Do you have a credible source?

The stories I've seen claim to be quoting der spiegel but I don't see the story on der speigel itself. For example, nothing is showing up on https://www.spiegel.de/suche/?suchbegriff=mask+kenya&seite=1

[hef19898]

Confirmed by the German defence ministry, first reported by Speigel who seems to have a copy from the internal report on it (they are citing passages from it in their German article).

But I agree, it is highly dubious. Not having been involved, my only theory right now is that the supplier sold them to someone els. if he ran delivery himself, it is easy to route it through Kenia. Then the shipment get's lost. If he was smart, he has proper insurance for it.

"The authorities are trying to find out what happened,” a German defence ministry spokeswoman said, confirming a report first published by Spiegel Online."

Surce: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-german...

[rjzzleep]

Yes, but the Kenyans say there was no such thing.[1]

Basically the only reason we trust the Germans over the Kenyans is because of reputation, keep in mind that there is no proof for that statement, we basically take their word for it. But in Germany even recently a stash of 100000 masks was stolen from a local hospital and everyone pretends there is no supply shortage.

So I don't know whether the Kenyans are lying, but I do know that the Germans are, because of information updates I get from local health department connections. Might just be the German government trying to talk themselves out of a bad situation. But right now, we don't know either way.

"We, therefore, wish to inform the public that we are treating this report of alleged disappearance of six million type FFP2 protective masks as fake news & that our cargo section continues with normal operations."

[1] https://twitter.com/KenyaAirports/status/1242455090952384512

[hef19898]

Talking about mixed signaling, so. Local practices are asking households and carpenters for masks and protective suites. At the same time German authorities are basically refusing external help. "We have our own processes" was the most usefull answer I heard this week from officials.

Luckily, I found a doctor who's heading a regional association today. and at least he was very happy to hear that someone was willing, and able, to help. I almost gave up today, would have been a quite a waste of available air freight and distribution capacities to get these thing from China.

As a side note, based on my experience with the german government in term of procurement and such things, this whole Kenia story is at least in realm of being possibly true. Still, a very strange story... I'm curious to see how it ends.

[jjjz]

Search for german "Schutzmaske Kenia"

https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/coronavirus-in-de...