Government officials in the U.S. and Europe have called for stricter mask protocols as more infectious strains of the coronavirus circulate, yet there is still concern that demand for respirator masks in the U.S. far outweighs supply.
The thinking in the U.S. around N95s is that they should be reserved for health care and other frontline workers who are at the highest risk of contracting the virus. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still says that N95s and medical-grade masks “should be conserved for health care personnel.”
At least two of the new strains — the B.1.1.7, which has been detected in around 300 people in the U.S., and the B.1.351, which has not been identified in the U.S. — are thought to be more transmissible. What is more concerning is that the South African strain lessens the effectiveness of vaccines developed by BioNTech SE BNTX, -0.30% /Pfizer Inc. PFE, -2.87% and Moderna Inc. MRNA, +2.50% and of at least one antibody treatment, made by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. REGN, -5.25%.
“It is wise for the public to upgrade their cloth masks and use better quality masks,” said Ravina Kullar, an epidemiologist and an adjunct faculty member at the University of California, Los Angeles. “And along the same lines, Dr. Fauci also recently stated that considering doubling up on your cloth mask as another recommendation.”
This is why Kimberly Clark Corp. KMB, +1.11% now makes its N95s in the U.S. — prior to 2020, they were produced on behalf of the company by external manufacturers. It also spent $30 million last year to beef up manufacturing capabilities and now has the ability to produce up to 30 million N95 respirators per month for non-medical use in the U.S., according to a company spokesperson.
The Strategic National Stockpile, for example, had 107 million respirators, as of October, compared with only 12.6 million in December 2019, according to the Government Accountability Office.