On the masks thing. I can confirm that there is, categorically, 100% a severe shortage of the type of masks that HCWs need to wear to protect them while they’re doing the job. Which happens when the whole fecking world tries to buy a product in quantities many thousands of times higher than the manufacturers usually produce. This is one of the biggest challenges that governments face right now in containing the epidemic. If doctors/nurses start getting sick/dying then this whole house of cards really starts falling apart, big time.
Now, have a think about how much worse this shortage would be if every citizen on the planet had been bidding to buy these exact same masks over the last couple of months after governments told them they were essential...
Obviously, if the public had been willing to purchase the sort of cheaper, more widely available masks instead then this potential crisis might have been averted. But, unfortunately, we live in an age full of social media “experts” who would have let everyone know how shit the standard masks are how it’s absolutely essential to bulk buy as many N95 masks as possible, or you’re signing your family’s death certificate. We saw what happened with bog roll ffs. This would have been that x 1000.