As the new coronavirus spreads, demand for face masks has skyrocketed. But there aren't enough manufacturers in the U.S. to keep up. 'I've got requests for maybe a billion and a half masks,' says an executive of a Texas-based manufacturer.
Prestige Ameritech Executive Vice President Mike Bowen, pictured in 2009, says his company can't keep up with demand for face masks used by doctors and nurses amid the coronavirus outbreak.Prestige Ameritech Executive Vice President Mike Bowen, pictured in 2009, says his company can't keep up with demand for face masks used by doctors and nurses amid the coronavirus outbreak.
In response, the Trump administration is looking at ways to rapidly expand domestic production, but the economics of the face-mask business makes that difficult. "We made a really big mistake," Bowen says of that decision. It took about four months to build the new machines, which are as long as a school busBy the time they were ready, the swine flu crisis had ended, demand vaporized, and Prestige Ameritech almost went bankrupt."One day — and it is literally almost like one day — it just quits. The demand is over, the phones stop ringing," Bowen says.
Most notably, he says, Kimberly-Clark, which used to be one of the industry leaders, moved its operations.
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