How the World’s Richest Country Ran Out of Face Masks
Unfortunately this article doesn&#x27;t get at any actual &quot;why&quot;. The author blames just-in-time supply chains, but for me the crucial part is:<p>&gt; <i>In 2006, Congress approved funds to add protective gear to a national strategic stockpile — among other things, the stockpile collected 52 million surgical face masks and 104 million N95 respirator masks. But about 100 million masks in the stockpile were deployed in 2009 in the fight against the H1N1 flu pandemic, and the government never bothered to replace them. This month, Alex Azar, secretary of health and human services, testified that there are only about 40 million masks in the stockpile — around 1 percent of the projected national need.</i><p>Stockpiles are <i>clearly</i> the answer, since supply chains are always going to fail in certain scenarios.<p>So the real questions here are, why didn&#x27;t Congress create a bigger stockpile and why didn&#x27;t it ensure it was maintained?<p>I genuinely want an in-depth answer to this question.<p>Is this some kind of problem with democratic government? Or are other democracies managinging responsible stockpiles just fine? Is it something unique to American politics? Do Americans somehow hold their representatives less accountable? Is it more the fault of one party over another? Is it leaving responsibilities to Congress that ought to be delegated to an agency? Is there are ideological or cultural component here, or just plain lack of accountability and people not doing their jobs?<p>Seriously. It&#x27;s important we have a <i>real in-depth analysis</i> on this. Not knee-jerk opiniated answers, but what <i>actually</i> happened.