[tartoran]

I thought the same and it seems obvious. Maybe it was politicised in the sense that they got caught pants down unprepared when even the medical staff didnt have masks, so certain actors or a whole chain of command who were to blame for the lack of supplies spined it out this way. Or maybe it was simply a miscommumication in the cacophony of voice and messages that first came out.

[DataWorker]

I seem to recall that we were shipping a lot of masks to China back in January, perhaps that’s part of the reason.

[tartoran]

Aren’t these masks largely manufactured outside the US? Were these masks made in China which were shipped back?