In the first few months of this year there was a severe face mask shortage.

Many people found it difficult to find the well known N95 mask. Hospitals and various clinics around the United States and elsewhere were doing everything that they could to source these products. Depending on where you are, they still might not be that easy to locate if needed.

People who had purchased a great deal of them and who had attempted to flip them on sites like Amazon and other selling platforms, all of a sudden found themselves banned from being able to make a profit. For weeks, those sellers have sought to restrict the sales of sanitizer, face masks, and other popular items that were in shortage.

Many people needed one and were not able to find one for several weeks, months or more.

And the U.S. government might have contributed to that shortage in their own country by declining a request from an American company to make more.

That company, manufacturing company known as Prestige Ameritech, offered to produce millions of masks to be flooded into the market, to go to doctors and hospitals that needed them etc. They were ready to start making them back in January, but government officials reportedly declined the offer.

This company is known as the largest domestic manufacturer that makes surgical masks and respirators in the country.

Who better to try and create millions of needed N95 masks to give to those in need? Why would the government say no to that?

They were ready to make more than 1 million masks that could've helped through the tough months of Feb and March when things got crazy and many shelves were empty, it became incredibly difficult to find those products.

That company allegedly emailed top U.S. officials at the Department of Health and Human Services and they had volunteered to give them priority on being able to access and obtain those medical supplies. They didn't end up taking him up on that offer. Prestige Ameritech didn't need the business because everyone in the world pretty much had been looking for N95 masks at that time, but they were going to give priority to their own government to get those N95 masks but instead they ultimately decided to refuse their generosity.

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pic2 via NPR