American nurses and doctors could soon receive a welcome influx of hospital masks from Taiwan, which is ramping up production to supply 100,000 masks per week to the United States.
“We have enough capacity to cooperate with the U.S.,” an official at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office, Taiwan’s de facto embassy to the U.S., told the Washington Examiner.
The dearth of masks presents a diplomatic opportunity for Taiwan, which is the last holdout of the mainland Chinese government overthrown in the Chinese Communist revolution of 1949. Chinese President Xi Jinping has ratcheted up pressure on the island government and succeeded in inducing other nations to cut diplomatic ties with Taipei, but Taiwanese officials now are positioned to expand their cooperation with Western powers — not only by providing hospital masks, but also as a source of reliable information on the new contagion.
The offer comes as U.S. tensions with China, where the outbreak began, intensify.
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Those donations would help address a shortfall that has forced federal officials to recommend that healthcare workers “use homemade masks (e.g., bandana, scarf)” if they run out of medical-grade masks due to the coronavirus pandemic. It’s one element of a broader plan “to share best practices and cooperate on a range of activities,” according to a joint statement released Wednesday by TECRO and the American Institute in Taiwan.
The U.S. “will be reserving 300,000 hazmat suits for Taiwan in the event that it requires them” in exchange for the masks, according to local reports. The island government has been rationing masks since early February and placed orders for local factories to expand mask production to more than 8 million per day.
“Seeing how the production rate has increased, the government will also be adjusting the rationing system accordingly,” Taiwanese Premier Su Tseng-chang said in early March.
The international shortage is driven by Beijing’s decision to restrict the export of masks made in mainland China, where the coronavirus pandemic originated, even when they are made by American-owned companies. The incoming masks will be a reprieve for hospital workers in the areas hardest-hit by the outbreak, as some healthcare workers have begun to make their own masks using store-bought supplies.
“We will exchange the research and the production about the vaccines and the medicines,” the TECRO official said. “We want to be a responsible member in the international community, and now if Taiwan has capacity and ability, we want to help countries and the world.”
