What is that referring to? Didn't see it in the Post article.
MR.PESICKA: Thank you, Mr. President. Let me first start by thanking the administration for all the support you have provided to the industry. And one of the things we did -- we did hear the challenge. And starting in January, we've ramped up our production in the Americas, including our facility in North Carolina, where we are now manufacturing an additional 40 to 50 million masks per month to get into the U.S. healthcare system.And we talked a little about this in the pre-meeting: One of the issues we're struggling with is the demand increase. You know, used an anecdotal example of one hospital in New York that traditionally uses roughly ten- to twenty thousand masks a week are now using two- to three hundred thousand masks a week. So you multiply that times the entire pop- -- the entire U.S., let alone the same demand outside of the U.S. That's part of the issue we're running into: Is even with a significant ramp-up in supply, you know, there's still that demand that is -- that is much greater than that supply.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much.
MR.PESICKA: Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: And I bring that up because when we discussed, back in a room -- we were in a conference room -- a very nice one, actually; it's called the Cabinet Room -- that statement was made that they've been delivering for years, 10- to 20,000 masks. Okay, it's a New York hospital. Very -- it's packed all the time. How do you go from 10 to 20, to 300,000? 10- to 20,000 masks to 300,000?
Even though this is different, something is going on, and you ought to look into it as reporters. Where are the masks going? Are they going out the back door? How do you go from 10,000 to 300,000? And we have that in a lot of different places. So, somebody should probably look into that, because I just don't see, from a practical standpoint, how that's possible to go from that to that. And we have that happening in numerous places -- not to that extent; that was the highest number I've heard. That's the highest number you've seen, I would imagine, right?
But this man makes them and delivers them to a lot of hospitals. He knows the system better than anybody. And I think you were more surprised than I was when you saw that number. So thank you very much. I hope I didn't get any of your clients in trouble, but it could be that they are in trouble. So they have to look at that in New York.
Yesterday the President noted one hospital in NYC that normally uses 15k face masks in a particular period of time had used 300k.
He wondered if they had gone out the back door....
Even the people who make the masks thought the hospital claims of using that many even in an epidemic were suspect.