Please don’t get me wrong here: I am in awe of those taking risks to care for people ill with any potentially serious infectious disease.
However:
Members of the general public have no way at present that I know of to obtain N95 masks unless, unless they somehow manage to raid masks in storage, hijack a shipment, or maybe a friend (FRiend?) gives them a few. The former 2 actions are unlikely in large quantity, and even if it happened the masks would likely be found and recovered, as anyone selling a bunch would stick out like a sore thumb. Smaller thefts at hospitals could surely be a problem, but that’s a matter for hospital security. (If short on such, maybe hire that guy whose job just went “down”.) The latter is inconsequential, and such users are most likely already reusing masks after sterilizing them anyway.
Put more simply, N95 masks are not being sent to points of retail sale, therefor the general public cannot affect your supply.
Why hospitals and others did not move to obtain more masks AND look into methods to sterilize them, early on, infuriates me. This problem was clearly coming well before Chinese New Year. All one had to do was observe China. The idea we could do anything more than buy time to slow COVID-19 somewhat is idiotic. Health care workers should have been demanding to know if adequate supplies were being procured. I myself as a caregiver and care-director for my 89 y/o Mom have been saying on here for several weeks that we need a crash program to make a billion N95 masks a month. This country could be well on the way to that, if not there, now.
I am not blaming President Trump - he doesn’t have time to research something like this on his own. No one can be an expert on even 1/10 of everything. But this is freaking CDC’s and NIAID’s “thing”, and surely they should have been advising him and the HCS properly, and to proact with prudence. Then there are hospital administrators: Are they all retards or nothing but oblivious bean counters?
Actually the public can buy N95 masks at home depot walgreens and the like and it does affect our supply. I know what legit N95 masks look like and I saw plenty on people at the grocery store yesterday. Most worn wrong I might add. In addition plain surgical masks are also in short supply in the hospitals and I saw even more of those on the general public yesterday. It is hurting our safety in hospitals