Go go through this ProPublica tale about a plan to relabel non-healthcare masks for emergency staff

As the coronavirus distribute across the US this spring, authorities warned people not to acquire N95 respirator masks, lest they contribute to a scarcity of the masks for health-related personnel. The N95 respirators are considered the most effective masks to filter out droplets in the air that may possibly transmit the virus. Internet sites like Amazon suspended income of N95 masks to the basic community and cracked down on sellers who tried to sell counterfeit variations.

But a ProPublica investigation uncovered an operation in Texas that was repackaging masks marked as “prohibited” for health care use into unlabeled baggage. A gentleman who answered an advert for a TaskRabbit gig informed ProPublica what he witnessed:

…5 or six other “Taskers” earning about $20 an hour have been ripping Chinese masks out of plastic bags and stuffing them into new types that had been similar but for 1 potentially deadly big difference. The aged deals have been labeled in all caps “MEDICAL USE PROHIBITED,” indicating not to be applied by medical professionals and nurses who want the strongest protection from small particles carrying the novel coronavirus. The new bags, meant to make their way to Texas hospitals, simply just omitted that warning.

According to ProPublica, the people behind the operation— a Silicon Valley trader and his company partner— made use of TaskRabbit and payments in excess of Venmo to relabel the masks with the intent of selling them to emergency employees in Texas. They experienced a stockpile of KN95 masks built in China, which are comparable to the N95s produced by 3M, but which often fall short to pass regulatory inspection for use in the US.

The 6-foot stack of boxes had been labeled as coming from a Chinese company, Guangzhou Aiyinmei Co. Ltd., which experienced been recognized by the Fda as a single of the companies manufacturing ineffective KN95s. The masks filter as minimal as 39% of particles, in accordance to screening by the Facilities for Illness Manage and Prevention. They’re so ineffective that Canada issued a remember. The Food and drug administration experienced swiftly permitted them and other individuals for health and fitness treatment use at the starting of the pandemic, but it transformed its brain previous month, even as thousands and thousands of the masks circulated in the US.

There was seemingly some confusion about whether KN95 masks had been authorized in the US or not, given that the Food and drug administration had modified its steerage on their use. Eventually, many thanks in component to ProPublica reporter J. David Swaine’s probing, the procedure didn’t promote any of its repackaged masks to consumers in the US. But the posting exhibits the gaping holes in our health care source chain and is an example of the kind of dogged reporting on infuriating subject areas that is ProPublica’s trademark. Go test it out here.