Supply would never keep up with demand.29 Nov 2020 15:46
My daughter is a Nurse working in a hospice, often 12 hour shifts due to both the lack of staff (see later) plus all the extra work re comforting those whose relatives, friends can't get to see.
Although all the staff having any contact wear PPE, only those dealing directly with confirmed or strong possibly infected with Covid 19 wear the full PPE set, the others wear the usual face covering mask or/and face shield.
A few days ago a patient was transferred to the Hospice from Hospital, without undergoing a Covid test pre transfer, (yes it is still happening) something which although now should not be occurring due to the high concentration of Covid 19 in care homes and hospices.
On arrival at the hospice the transferred person was tested and found to be positive, but during that time, as a none likely Covid sufferer/carrier the staff treating/caring for her (including my daughter) only wore the basic PPE of mask/face shield gloves gown etc, as there is still a lack of full PPE plus often these patients are near death and confused, so a line has to be drawn as to as near normality as possible.
My daughter checked positive the next day and along with several other staff has to isolate for 14 days, leaving a severe staff shortage.
The P2F Covid killing mask of course could have probably gone a long way into stopping the infected person passing the virus onto the hospice staff, so even at a price of say £5 each, these masks would be snapped up in their hundreds of millions, a far higher rate than any as yet production level mentioned.
I obviously mentioned the above situation due to personally knowing the situation, but there must be thousands of other situation out there where even 1 member of staff being isolated, having a cost to their business many multiples of a P2F mask costing £5.
The £5 figure was just pulling out of the ether, as we know the price per mask will be well under that price mark.