> My coworkers from mainland China were concerned about our well-being and started shipping us KN95 masks
My partner’s friend with family in China did the same thing for us. His dad was getting chemo and they had their family send a couple boxes of KN95s over to help protect him. Depressing, given how much America looks like a failed state relative to the two countries pandemic response, but good that interpersonal relationships trump all the BS “new Cold War” rhetoric.
You can just order KN95s quite easily in the United States and have been able to for a long time, and actually I have for personal use (especially during the CA fires), and they have almost identical nominal requirements to N95, but:
The reason we don’t have masks is because we’ve gone all in on China and lost our manufacturing base. If you think this happened in the past 3 years, you have to ignore all data and pretend history doesn’t exist.
Yes, it's not like I have any connection via heritage or anything either, but our Chinese friends and coworkers have been extremely kind to us. They seem mystified / embarrassed to ask about the way our country is managing.
My partner’s friend with family in China did the same thing for us. His dad was getting chemo and they had their family send a couple boxes of KN95s over to help protect him. Depressing, given how much America looks like a failed state relative to the two countries pandemic response, but good that interpersonal relationships trump all the BS “new Cold War” rhetoric.