Recently, Heilongjiang province's initiative to "exchange one N95 for five disposable masks" has made it to the hot search list on Weibo. The COVID-19 response headquarters of Heilongjiang Province announced that this is to ease the tight supply of protective equipment and ensure the demand of medical "front line" and "epidemic" front line.
With the orderly progress of the fight against the epidemic, some people may think that the shortage of protective equipment has been solved, but in fact, the shortage of masks, protective clothing, and other equipment on the front line exceeds many people's imagination. Taking February 6th as an example, there was a demand for 59900 pieces of medical protective clothing in Wuhan on that day, with a shortage of 41400 pieces. The demand for medical N95 masks is 119000, with a shortage of 56800. There are also varying degrees of material shortages in other severely affected areas.
Expanding production capacity takes time, and the supply-demand imbalance is temporarily difficult to fundamentally resolve. It is reported that masks cannot be delivered to consumers immediately after production is completed. They also need to be sterilized and left for 14 days before leaving the factory. In this context, the mask replacement method proposed by Heilongjiang Province is a practical strategy for optimizing resource allocation.
Experts have repeatedly emphasized that N95 medical protective masks are suitable for frontline medical staff, and disposable masks are sufficient for daily protection of ordinary people. But some people are not aware of this and panic have rushed to buy a large number of N95 masks, even leading to a situation of "shortage in the front and idle in the back" in some places. Local governments are calling on the public to voluntarily replace masks, which can make better use of limited resources.
