Thread by @michaelzlin

Two years too late. Okay, it was the former guy then, so just 1 year too late for this administration.

I recommended household distribution of small packs of masks in March 2020.

https://twitter.com/michaelzlin/status/1243966944518246400

Korea and Taiwan did that for their citizens. Taiwan gave out a few free medical masks per week per person. Korea allowed purchases but limited per person and price-controlled.
nytimes.com/2020/04/01/opi…

In the US, pushback to medical masks for all was based on the myth that there were not enough to go around. But this was simply not true. There were 100s of millions of masks, but HHS took them all for the hospitals. Hence a prevention opportunity was lost

https://twitter.com/michaelzlin/status/1245204640469118979

Indeed there was such a plan considered in the Trump administration but they sent 600M masks to states and non-profits instead. None of those seemed to make their way to individual homes.
nbcnews.com/health/health-…

Here in California, Newsom ordered 420M masks for hospitals.

Of course it's necessary hospitals get masks, but with a population of 40M, each person could have gotten 3 masks and the hospitals would still have 300M, just for starters.

To make masks and rapid tests free for households now is nice, but it would have been much better earlier. Now we're near herd immunity (via vax and infection), and Omicron will be over soon. This is closing the barn door after most of the horses have escaped.