If you imagine a business making surgical facemasks is working 24/7, guess again
One angle that this article missed: anti-price gouging sentiment has a lot to do with why the factory isn’t running 24/7. Imagine if he could charge 10x his normal price (ie $1/mask, which is much less than the value a mask provides.) I suspect plenty of employees would happily work 100 hour weeks for the duration of the crisis if they were getting paid $150/hr. Instead, he’s forced to take a slower, more conservative approach to ramping up to avoid risking bankruptcy.