The Australian mask situation is a mess. Masks exhausted by bushfires, tiny local mask production, 3M stocks exhausted or quarantined. TGA sensibly creates expedited process to import masks like Canada etc. but flips when news reports complained the elastic ear loops 1/n
were not strong enough to carry 2lbs of weight calling them "fakes". Borderforce starts grandstanding about confiscating "fakes". Bans export of protective products to China, when China products 90% of global PPE and they are just buying back the product they produced &
Australian retailers are making a profit. TGA sends letter to registered sponsors threatening recalls, 300 importers deregister. eBay etc delist sellers. Victoria then decrees everyone must wear a mask. Masks stocks instantly exhaust and local manufacturers run out of elastic.
Local production isn't even online yet in any real scale. Taiwan set up 60 production lines for similar population as Australia costing US$7m back in March. Now everyone is being told to make your mask out of bits of old cloth, when these do bugger all to filter particles.
This is a chapter right out of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.
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