American mask makers are going out of business

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/05/business/dealbook/american-mask-makers.html

by prostoalex • 4 years ago

95 141 4 years ago

nytimes.com

vorpalhex• 4 years ago

Never go all in on a time limited business. Gotta expand to stay afloat.

grubbs• 4 years ago

Trump T-Shirts->Covid Masks->???

ev12• 4 years ago

While traveling through the middle US I've found some absolutely strange (to an outsider) roadside stands in the middle of nowhere selling obviously purchased in bulk from China anti-Biden merch and BLM merch (masks, shirts, caps..) at the same place

vmception3• 4 years ago

switched to dropshipping Q-Anon branded coffee mugs 8 months ago

vmception3• 4 years ago

From my experience I don't think anyone went all in. They did the opportunistic thing, and now do the next opportunistic thing or nothing. Way to go!

snapetom• 4 years ago

I believe it was the Mr. Bowen in this article that, despite heavily criticism, steadfastly refused to expand his mask-making business during the early days of the pandemic. His reason was that it would be stupid to expand his operation without long term contractual guarantees and regulatory assurances.

Good on him for holding the line. His business would be in trouble right now if he expanded because the US still obviously hasn't learned the lesson.

throwawayboise• 4 years ago

Nothing to do with the fact that the demand for masks has cratered, with them not being required in most places anymore?

bee_rider• 4 years ago

There's still some demand for them, it is just low enough that it can be met with imports.

And who could think of a reason why we might need the capability to domestically produce a bunch of masks all of a sudden, right? Inconceivable.

daxfohl3• 4 years ago

My guess, we'll be back wearing them again in two months.

sbmthakur• 4 years ago

Due to a more contagious variant?

daxfohl3• 4 years ago

Easing restrictions will open whole new pathways to social groups who have not yet been infected. China is about to explode, so transmission and variants to come from there. Most people are not boosted, immunity isn't gonna be as strong as we think.

noobermin4• 4 years ago

https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1502340845986451456

xwdv2• 4 years ago

If I don’t wear a mask, what are people gonna do about it?

Nothing.

People fold quickly when you ignore their requests to wear a mask.

michaelmrose2• 4 years ago

So you prefer to trespass on private property while ignoring the requirements for entry available in law, posted on the door, and communicated to you directly by ignoring employees like they are non people.

Do you just do this now or were you doing this back in 2020 too?

raphlinus• 4 years ago

You would be asked to leave our Quaker meeting, attend it via Zoom instead.

ceroxylon3• 4 years ago

Do you interact with society on a regular basis? Businesses have the right to refuse service, and you will absolutely be escorted out (minimum) and will most likely have your tantrum broadcast to the internet if you pretend you are some sort of martyr.

Taniwha3• 4 years ago

No - if we see you maskless in an establishment we go somewhere else with sensible customers

fma• 4 years ago

The covid tests mailed to me by the US government are made in China. I'm sure the government contracted it to a US supplier who bought the tests from China...but come on . 2 years in and we aren't producing even Covid tests?

Why can't the US government mandate hospitals need to purchase a percentage of their supplies from US manufacturers in order to receive medicaid/Medicare. It can be 10, 20%, low enough to keep costs down by importing the bulk from China, but high enough to maintain a base that can be ramped up.

rbobby• 4 years ago

Why can't the US government mandate hospitals need to purchase a percentage of their supplies from US manufacturers in order to receive medicaid/Medicare.

Trade agreements most likely.

I would not be surprised if that sort of preferential treatment would count as a subsidy and be actionable under NAFTA (whatever it's called now).

dehrmann2• 4 years ago

We also have a healthcare cost crisis. It wouldn't just be masks, it would be literally everything the hospital buys, and it would "tie their hands from getting the best price for patients" (I guarantee you a Republican would use a similar line in a campaign if that proposal went through.

iratewizard4• 4 years ago

There are a number of contributing factors. The lack of manufacturing in the US, which you can blame on bean counters wanting to utilize Chinese slave labor. A tax system that prefers the lower wage workers be either on the dole, work illegally, or work 3 gig-based jobs. A kafkaesque government contracting system dreamed up and continually patched by government workers. The same government workers that would work private sector if they were given a chance. But, they often can't because a lack of experience, aptitude or drive.

xapata3• 4 years ago

Slave labor? Surely the ratio of Chinese laborers who feel enslaved is low enough that it's inappropriate to describe Chinese labor on the whole as slave labor.

barry-cotter4• 4 years ago

The lack of manufacturing in the US

The United States is the world's third largest manufacturer (after the People's Republic of China and the European Union) with a record high real output in Q1 2018 of $2.00 trillion (i.e., adjusted for inflation in 2009 Dollars) well above the 2007 peak before the Great Recession of $1.95 trillion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_in_the_United_St....

encryptluks23• 4 years ago

Part of the issue is that American businesses are not always better. So a requirement of purchasing subpar overpriced products just because they're American-made doesn't help anyone. They need to find ways to create innovative manufacturing in America.

freeopinion• 4 years ago

Simple naive economics suggests otherwise. If a 10% domestic requirement keeps demand artificially high, competition will enter the market. New factories, etc. will spring up to get a piece of the fat. They will compete on price, quality, etc.--all the usual points of competition. People will get creative to get their piece of that pie. (Of course some of the creativity will be figuring out ways to subcontract it to China and still count as American.)

gizmo686• 4 years ago

At a minimum it is a jobs program, and so can be viewed as part of the welfare state (a lot of government spending falls, at least partially, into this category).

Perhaps more importantly, it provides a national strategic interest that is not easily captured through economic analysis. When times are good and international trade happens smoothly this is not important, but when the international market breaks down for some reason, having domestic production gives our government more options in how to respond.

We saw this with covid, when every nation was scrambling critical resources to deal with the public health emergency. We see this now with Russia, who is regretting how dependent they on foreign trade; and in Europe who are regretting how dependent they are on Russian energy.

cscurmudgeon2• 4 years ago

This ignores the massive levels of subsidies that the Chinese govt provides to their companies.

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3167588/c...

WalterBright2• 4 years ago

One reason the software industry in America is so successful is because there is no government license required to write software, and software can be shipped without needing approval from the government, and the government doesn't regulate how the software is written.

Yes, I know if you write software for a medical device, the FDA will have to approve it.

r_hoods_ghost• 4 years ago

The USA (and UK) seem to have entirely lost sight of the fact that there are strategic industries, capabilities and products as a result of a blind devotion to the ideology of the "free" market and a belief that globalisation is forever and always and that you'll always be able to buy whatever you need from whomever you want. The requirement to purchase some domestically made products is a hedge against such events as a global pandemic or large scale war. Innovative, high tech, high skill manufacturing is important, but so is boring, non innovative, low margin manufacturing that provides resiliance.

jjulius• 4 years ago

2 years in and we aren't producing even Covid tests?

It's an error to assume that there are absolutely no COVID tests made in the US simply because the small handful you received wasn't.

For instance, the popular over-the-counter at-home test manufactured by Abbott is made in the US, except for swabs (mix of Thailand and US) due to supply/demand issues.

https://www.globalpointofcare.abbott/en/product-details/bina...

jacobolus• 4 years ago

Abbott sells their Binax test in the US for like 5x the price they sell the same test for in Europe, because the FDA was slow to approve other brands of rapid tests and used questionable criteria,† so they had substantial monopoly pricing power while other vendors’ tests were restricted.

If the only way US test production can compete is via predatory price gouging, that’s hardly a sign of health.

†: The criterion was performance vs. PCR test, even though PCR and antigen tests measure different things, so that the vendors who slipped through the regulation were those who best gamed the test studies, while various other vendors with tests that perform nearly identically in practice failed FDA study criterion. The FDA refused to accept a performance comparison of new antigen tests vs. already approved antigen tests.

hatware3• 4 years ago

It's an error to assume that there are absolutely no COVID tests made in the US simply because the small handful you received wasn't.

It's an error to imply they were making this assumption in the first place. I, too, am baffled that two years into a pandemic, any tests are coming from China. Didn't the whole thing _start_ there?

landemva• 4 years ago

USA can restrict import of medical devices and already makes it broadly illegal to import medical drugs. https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/fda-basics/it-legal-me-persona...

(I'm not advocating for these restrictions.)

karmasimida3• 4 years ago

The manufacturing cost in US is too high, but the productivity isn't proportionally higher.

Regulations and labor protection is good for workers, but it will increase cost and if those manufacturers have choice they will source their suppliers elsewhere.

Other comments also mentioned, that made in US isn't really a hallmark of quality across the board, if the consumers are expected to pay 2x-3x more, then it better has something extraordinary to offer, I don't think mask had that much differentiation

bitcharmer• 4 years ago

I don't think it's due to manufacturing costs. Just look at how much insulin costs to make and the price it's sold at in the US.

ch4s36• 4 years ago

The FDA and CDC made it illegal for US hospitals, companies, and universities to produce COVID tests until after the CDC effort to produce them had already failed twice. By then there was a booming business in China and South Korea making tests. We only knew about the outbreak in Seattle because some brave scientists broke the law and ran their own tests.

I would also add, as other people have mentioned, that domestic manufacturing requirements are at best over priced jobs programs through the back door.

WalterBright2• 4 years ago

Why can't the US government mandate hospitals need to purchase a percentage of their supplies from US manufacturers

Off the top of my head:

1. what if US manufacturers can't supply them in sufficient quantity

2. what if US manufacturers' delivery dates are too far in the future

3. what if US manufacturers' product does not meet standard

4. what exactly is a US manufacturer anyway, in a world with a global supply chain and complex ownership structures?

5. what if there's only one US manufacturer, and so can charge monopoly prices?

PedroBatista• 4 years ago

The reason for pre-pandemic masks being mostly made in India was because it was a very low profit business that basically protected the many small-medium size incumbent who already had the machinery, know-how and connections.

Once the demand goes to levels similar to 2019 and the supply-chains stabilize, no business can escape the realities of the market unless they somehow manage to undercut the competition on price even more, which in this case is almost ridiculous.

mumblemumble2• 4 years ago

It's very common for businesses and industries that governments deem to be strategically important to be protected from market forces.

Market forces are not a moral obligation, nor are they an invitation to put a huge "kick me" sign on your back, stand in front of some proverbial John Galt, and let nature take its course. They're just a description of how things tend to naturally work out in the absence of intervention.

remram2• 4 years ago

They are going out of the business of making masks. Isn't that a good thing?

hprotagonist• 4 years ago

because no surgeons, lab techs, or workers need masks when there isn’t a pandemic on.

N95 respirators get used for all sorts of stuff. I use them so i don’t breathe in sintered brake pad dust when i work on my car, for example.

remram2• 4 years ago

Are every single one of them going out of business?

Genuinely asking because the article is paywalled.

ceroxylon3• 4 years ago

I can't find a reference for a modern surgeon abstaining from wearing a mask while operating, could you please provide a source?

mumblemumble2• 4 years ago

Well, like the article says, it's a big strategic problem for the USA to not have any domestic PPE production.

2 years ago all the health care establishments in the USA really, really needed N95 masks, but couldn't get them. Because they were all manufactured overseas, and all the countries that produced them decided to temporarily stop exporting to protect their own supplies. It was a problem. The emergency department where my dad used to work nearly had to shut down for a while due to staffing shortages from his colleagues catching COVID.

It happened with H1N1, it happened with COVID-19, and now the US is negligently ensuring that it will happen to them again with the next major epidemic, too.

(Also, that phrase "used to" should perhaps be chilling to anyone who lives in the USA and does not possess a mutant healing factor.)

stkdump• 4 years ago

Instead of domestic production you could also buy them from China and put them on stock for the next pandemic, like a strategic PPE reserve.

vmception3• 4 years ago

Yes, it's a good thing, for the founders and shareholders. This isn't a story of failure, its a story of doing the next best opportunistic thing. People are conditioned to believe in a distant dream of creating corporate forever-homes, so articles write to cater to that sentiment, as opposed to simply hopping on a market need in an expedition style, or precision strike style venture.

For the country, thats a different thing. If the state wants a certain kind of transaction to occur then they need to incentivize it.

Rebelgecko• 4 years ago

It sets a not necessarily good precedent for future pandemics. In 2020 I read an article where they interviewed a mask manufacturer in Texas asking him if he would be expanding production. He talked about how during the swine flu pandemic he purchased enough equipment to open new production lines, he hired new people, and had all these capital costs. After the pandemic, the new equipment sat unused and he had to do layoffs. The business owner said he wasn't planning on expanding production due to covid

mbg721• 4 years ago

Why, because we might have another once-in-a-century pandemic two or three years from now? We were told that we all had to drop everything and alter our daily lives because this was an exceptional crisis that hadn't been seen in generations. If that's genuinely true, who cares about precedent? Exceptional circumstances are what emergency laws are for.

rejor121• 4 years ago

Easy. Just say that the masks not only protect you from Covid, but also from those identity stealing facial recognition cams!

yalogin• 4 years ago

I feel like it’s also a matter of availability and knowledge. I had no idea masks were being manufactured in the US and don’t know if they are targeted towards consumers or hospitals either. Also people buy everything through Amazon, so unless they are available there and specifically highlighted, it’s very tough for the average consumer to buy them.

dsizzle• 4 years ago

These masks are made in the US (as mentioned in the listing) and they're on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/NIOSH-approved-anti-counterfeit-packa... I bought some and they're pretty good.

namelosw• 4 years ago

There wasn't so many mask makers in China before Covid. And after Covid there won't be as many either - in fact, they're just going to shrug it off and make something else by then.

People are talking about Shenzhen electronics all the time. It's that impressive because the supply chains are there.

Yiwu, the Shenzhen counterpart for everything else is less mentioned: no matter its masks, toys, clothes, furniture, or MAGA hats, or Ukrainian flags (or Donetsk flags, or even RoC flags, they don't care), they make EVERYTHING and it's the place the world put orders to. It's the kitchen sink of the light industry, so that companies stay afloat instead of making masks for life.

noobermin4• 4 years ago

You say that but those people not "making masks for life" controlled 90% of the mask market in the US. Who cares how they did it, the main issue is the fact this country is unwilling to build up local supply chains because they're too busy giving themselves fat bonuses by cutting costs while jacking up hospital bills on patients (speaking of the hospital admins who are responsible for this sort of thing) and no one in government or anyone else is going to stop them.

ch4s36• 4 years ago

Who cares how they did it

Isn’t that sort of the whole question?

the main issue is the fact this country is unwilling to build up local supply chains

We don’t have a command economy. It also doesn’t make much sense to pay prevailing US wages to produce masks that sell for $0.50 per unit, you would need incredible scale to make that work, you’d need to be 3M, who does make them.

because they're too busy giving themselves fat bonuses by cutting costs while jacking up hospital bills on patients

What? People who run hospitals are unlikely to every be involved in manufacturing anything, it’s a totally different kind of business.

I’m not sure what you’re arguing here.

Taniwha3• 4 years ago

But masks were commonly worn in public in Asia by people with a cold or flu before covid - they already had a market for masks before the pandemic and manufacturers filling it

ulfw• 4 years ago

Yes but a tiny one.

1 or 2% of the population wearing a mask for a week isn't quite the same as 100% of the population wearing one for years (e.g. in Singapore or Hong Kong).

throwaway4good2• 4 years ago

Capitalism vs. communism I guess ...

ackbar03• 4 years ago

you got me confused there for a sec

user_named• 4 years ago

In China it's become semi-standard to wear a mask in the office even after just having a cold. So there's a definite change to something similar to Japan.

petre• 4 years ago

Can't the production be repurposed to making HEPA filters or vehicle filters in times of normality, then switch on the mask making machines during a pandemic?

dikaio• 4 years ago

Start with getting politicians in office that care.

Deal with current Politicians, Executives of multinational corporations, Pharma and the industrial complex.

When China threatened to not send the US medicine during the pandemic it should have made it clear what the US should be preparing for.

noobermin4• 4 years ago

Which politicians in which party care? The current admin isn't Trump anymore.

iamleppert• 4 years ago

Why is human labor required to make masks at all? You’d think it would be nearly fully automated by now. It looks like some woman sitting at some kind of giant sewing machine.

China probably can produce the masks because they are masters of economies of scale. Sure, there are still sweatshops but anyone who has actually been inside a Chinese factory knows that is selling them short. Most Chinese factories are nearly completely automated and vastly more sophisticated than anything you’ll ever see in the US. They are obsessed with automation and continuously invest back into the business, preferring ways to increase per work output with technology.

I’d compare it to Amazon, which also makes me wonder why hasn’t Amazon gotten into all sorts of manufacturing by now?

m3nu2• 4 years ago

The machines to make masks are fairly cheap (100k or so, maybe less now) and with some tinkering they can be fully automated. Also gives more consistent quality.

The expensive part is the non-woven base material. I’m not sure this would be available in the US or could be stored for long. Even in CN only a few firms make it and it was the main bottleneck during Covid.

Source: worked closely with smaller CN companies to make masks and that’s what they shared with me over the previous 2 years.

t8e56vd4ih• 4 years ago

non-woven base material

what does that mean?

dragontamer• 4 years ago

The big N95 mask makers seem like: 3M, Moldex, and Kimtech.

As far as I can tell, all three of these are 100% American made. A bunch of smaller companies opened up due to the N95 mask shortage for the pandemic. I'm not surprised that the smaller businesses are going out of business, but I have my doubts that the "big" ones are leaving USA either.

nhoughto• 4 years ago

Reminds me of the vocal American n95 mask producer who wasn’t operating at 100% production 2 years ago bc he has seen it all before, knew buyers wouldn’t appear just bc American and would opt for cheaper products naturally undermining stable domestic supply. If he ramped up he would just erode his profit margin, sad.

throwaway4good2• 4 years ago

I am the only one who is thankful for the adaptive Chinese industry?

Personally I am happy that I am not toiling away at some mask factory but instead sitting here, in the safety of my own home, copying pieces of JavaScript from stackoverflow into an internal webapp for some big corp, with an ample supply of masks and rapid antigen tests at my disposal.

rognjen• 4 years ago

There are a few industries that will have to consolidate now that the pandemic seems to be calming down.

Anecdotally I know of several small businesses that switched from an unrelated field to importing and selling medical and related supplies.

Testing clinics have also grown and their size will no longer be sustainable due to reduced demand.

Thee has also been a boom in delivery businesses that were sustainable when demand was overwhelming but will no longer be viable, restaurant and grocery in particular.

They also will have knock-on effects onto other businesses such as packing material. If restaurants deliver a lot less they'll need a lot fewer take-out boxes, etc

American mask makers are going out of business

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