Several months into the pandemic, there’s still a high demand for surgical masks, gowns, and other types of personal protective equipment in the United States. That’s partly because of the stress the COVID-19 crisis has put on the healthcare supply chain to produce and distribute the protective gear.
One reason the process has bottlenecked is that, unlike homemade or commercial masks, the face masks worn by healthcare staff must undergo a specific set of tests to ensure they will be safe for hospital personnel.
But those tests are difficult to perform, requiring specialized facilities that are only available at some laboratories in the U.S. And because of the logistics of sending materials to an external facility during a pandemic, that kind of testing can take more than a few weeks to complete, resulting in slow distribution times for manufacturers.
