A Chinese Supplier of Dog Products Just Offered Me Face Masks
By: Thomas Smith
Tags: Supply Chain, Business, Coronavirus, Masks, China

A Chinese Supplier of Dog Products Just Offered Me Face Masks

And that’s an incredibly positive sign

Photo by Michael Amadeus on Unsplash

Starting in 2016, I developed a popular pet product on Amazon. Called the Crusty Comb, it was a special flea comb designed to clean the faces of long-haired dogs like my Bichon Frises. Developing the product required working with a factory in China. They created custom bags for me, attached labels, and shipped them to my company here in the United States.

Today I received a message from the same supplier pitching a new product: face masks.

As COVID-19 has spread worldwide and begun to seriously impact the United States, shortages of essential goods have made a bad situation much worse. Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, I’m living under a general lockdown and shelter-in-place order, which restricts all but essential travel.

With supply chains strained, staff reduced and alleged panic buying, stores have been out of products like paper towels, hand sanitizer, Clorox wipes, gloves and surgical masks for over a week. On a visit to CVS pharmacy yesterday, the manager told me that they received a shipment of new supplies (including hand sanitizer) in the morning, and there were lines out the door.

By the time I arrived in the afternoon, the supplies were long gone. They won’t receive another shipment for a week. The situation was the same throughout the East Bay — I visited six stores seeking essential goods, and none had sanitizer, masks or other basic supplies in stock. Even the availability of many foods was patchy — although this does seem to be improving.

Sanitizer, masks and gloves and other basic medical supplies, though, are likely to be unavailable for a while. And even if masks were in stock, I don’t know that I’d buy any. Authorities say that they have limited efficacy at protecting against the virus, unless they have an N95 certification, which means that they filter out 95% of particles down to .3 microns.

And they’re urgently needed in other places. Consumer pharmacies aren’t the only places lacking masks — hospitals are facing a major shortage as well, leading some workers in hard-hit places like Washington State to make masks out of office supplies in an attempt to protect themselves and patients. On a recent visit to UCSF in San Francisco, signs warned that masks would only be provided to patients with respiratory symptoms. Normally, during cold and flu season, they’re handed out liberally at stands throughout the hospital.

At UCSF in San Francisco, N95 masks were restricted to selected patients. Credit: Gado Images.

There’s an obvious reason why masks and other essential medical supplies are barely available here in the United States. Like many products in the modern economy, they rely on a global supply chain that ultimately terminates in mainland China. And until recently, China wasn’t sharing.

Amid its own major outbreak of COVID-19, China’s normally export-focused economy stalled. And what production capacity remained was turned inwards. Even during the peak of China’s initial crisis, the country turned out 200 million face masks per day.

But that’s barely enough to meet the country’s intense internal demand. China (and other countries like Singapore) have issued masks to all citizens. While they may not protect the wearer very much, masks do help to protect others from the coughs and sneezes of the infected, potentially contributing to reducing community spread. As a result of massive internal demand, exports sank, and shortages in the United States and other Western countries grew.

It’s a story which will likely apply to many other products we’ve come to rely on. Face masks are an obvious example, because demand for them has spiked. Reserves were quickly depleted, and so we in the West are feeling the effects of limited supply. As reserves of other made-in-China products are depleted, we’ll likely see shortages in other categories. It’s a byproduct of a supply chain which — especially in technology — has become increasingly serpentine and globalized.

Masks are a bit like the canary in the supply chain coalmine. Shortages here are an immediate indicator of supply problems in China. But other supply challenges will abound as the COVID-19 crisis worsens, and affects larger swatches of the world economy.

Ultimately, though, there is good news (at least when it comes to masks). Through draconian quarantine measures and the mass control of its population, China appears to have gotten the virus’ spread in check — at least for now. As more Chinese return to work, factory capacity is increasing. And factories are increasingly turning their production capacity away from consumer goods and towards essential products.

According to NPR, thousands of Chinese factories have turned to making masks and other COVID-19 related supplies, in a literal “army” of production. Factories are working at 110% capacity, and have brought in new equipment and workers to meet demand. As the virus has abated domestically, demand within the country has dropped. As a result, exports have begun — tentatively — to resume.

This is very good news for countries like the United States, where the virus is just beginning to ramp up. The delay between China’s outbreak and our own has given us crucial time — time for China’s world-leading manufacturing capacity to come back online, and time for authorities and others in the United States to arrange imports of essential goods.

The fact that suppliers are offering shipments of masks to even tiny, lowly importers like me is a very positive sign. It means that production capacity is resuming, and Chinese companies are actively seeking customers for their products outside the country again.

The fact that a former supplier of plastic bags is now offering me masks is also encouraging, and a bit concerning. According to NPR, masks are surprisingly challenging to make. Not just any factory can produce them properly — especially the more complex masks that can achieve an N95 certification. The country has already confiscated over 31 million counterfeit masks that don’t meet standards.

Of course, there’s always the possibility that my dog product manufacturer isn’t actually making the masks they’re selling. It’s a common practice — and was before the pandemic — for Chinese factories to offer their customers products sourced from other local suppliers, which may or may not be marketed under their own brand. When in 2017 I asked my bag supplier about also supplying flea combs, they quickly responded with a variety of options, likely sourced from a local peer.

There’s also the question of whether imports can happen fast enough. Even with courier delivery and rush production, my supplier quoted me a lead time of 15–19 days to receive a shipment of masks. If Italy is any indication, the United States may not have that kind of time.

As factories in China turn their production capacity to pandemic essentials, it’s likely that supplies of other products will experience shocks. Of course, demand for these products is already likely to be lower to begin with. No one is much concerned with buying a dog flea comb in the midst of a global pandemic (and I have exited that market anyway).

Despite production challenges, quality issues and longer lead times, the restarting of global supply chains is a very good sign. Experts are divided on whether China can maintain control of COVID-19 as more Chinese return to work. But if they can — or even if they can maintain rates of infection at reasonable levels — having their production capacity back online will likely have a major impact outside the country.

Today’s globalized supply chains lead to weaknesses, like the inability to receive exports of essential products when local demand surges and production turns inwards. But it also provides strength, in that China can continue to make and sell essential products to the United States, even as our own infections mount and our internal production capacity stalls.

Would I trust a face mask potentially made by a former supplier of dog products? At the moment, that’s not really the question. The question is whether I’d trust it over a homespun alternative made from the lining of surgical trays, or vinyl bought from Home Depot (both of which are in use in Seattle hospitals today). Or if I’d prefer it to no mask at all.

For essential medical supplies, quality assurance is still essential. I’d likely wear an untested mask, if no other alternatives were available. But would I use an untested ventilator? If I worked as a doctor, would I trust an untested respirator to keep me safe while treating a known infected person?

Again, much of this may be a moot point. If Chinese companies are offering these products to people like me, they’re presumably offering more complex medical supplies to the major distributors with the capacity to do their own quality assurance and other testing.

Ultimately, China’s capacity to keep the virus in check, the delays between their outbreak and our own (helped along by quarantine measures here), and a herculean effort to increase production may mean an increase in the supply of essential products just as the West needs them. And it may ultimately save thousands or millions of lives.