N95 Surgical Mask

Yingru Chen

Go online now and search for “surgical mask,” or more specifically, the “N95 Particulate Respirator Face Mask,” and all one may find is “out of stock online.” The N95 mask is a face mask that has been NIOSH (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health)-approved to contain at least 95% filtration efficiency against solid and liquid aerosols that do not contain oil, and it is of urgent need due to the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 in Wuhan, China since December 2019. By now (25th February 2020), the virus has infected 77,785 people and killed 2,666.

Because of the outbreak of the virus, Chinese people are buying up medical masks- the essential protective gear for medical workers treating potential patients- from factories that typically supply hospitals around the world, and masks everywhere are in short supply. 

Despite the urgent need, China’s Civil Affairs Ministry published on January 26^th, 2020, a notice that banned any privately run charities or volunteers from entering Hubei, and added that all future donations should be handled instead by the official, state-run charities. According to the announcement, donated materials cannot be delivered directly to hospitals. All official charities must report donations to the Hubei provincial and Wuhan municipal disease control groups, and those agencies will allocate the materials to different hospitals. Unaffiliated with the Red Cross elsewhere, the local Red Cross Society is one of two government-controlled organizations through which the government monopolizes philanthropy. The Wuhan government has insisted that all donations must go through the local chapter of the Red Cross.

Yet, a journalist of the China Central Television (Yangshi Xinwen) visited the storage of Hubei’s Red Cross and reported that most of the supplies remained stored and undelivered. This report showed that of two million masks donated from across China, the local Red Cross had only delivered 200,000 to hospitals, one-tenth of the total supplies received. 

Figure 3. Storage of Local Red Cross, Wuhan, Hubei. This image is reproduced from Yangshi Xinwen’s live under the auspices of Fair Use.

Even among those delivered, the masks had not been sent to hospitals that were in urgent need. According to the report, Wuhan Union Hospital received just 5,000 surgical masks, while two other hospitals – Wuhan Ren’ai and Wuhan Tianyou – received 32,000. Yet neither Ren’ai nor Tianyou hospital treats coronavirus-infected patients. Nurses and doctors at Wuhan Union Hospital have said they were forced to make masks and protective suits using the cloth from their medical overalls. In other cities, doctors have been using disposable rain suits as protection.

The report has been received with public outrage. Because of the insufficiency of the local officials, a large number of hospitals are now saying they will only accept direct donations, effectively bypassing the local Red Cross. These hospitals posted on Weibo (one of the biggest Chinese social media platforms) to directly ask the public for medical supplies, and many volunteers and smaller NGOs constructed websites on which posts asking for medical supplies are affirmed and then compiled together. The page includes information on the name of the hospital, the urgency of the supplies, and the number and types of supplies in need. When clicking on the button “for more information,” one can see ways to deliver, as well as personal contact information and addresses of the doctors. Through the platform, medical supplies are directly delivered from the public to the hospital. 

Figures 4 and 5. Online Resource Providence Platform Organized by Volunteers

It is of interest to think of what type of infrastructural framework made this movement of masses possible. To summarize it briefly, the booming of e-commerce in China in the early 21^st century concomitantly brings forth the need for express delivery. Most of the items on major e-marketplaces such as Taobao or JD.com provide free delivery as an incentive for purchasing. In 2013, a total of 9.2 billion parcels were delivered in China, with an average charge of 15.69 yuan (about $2.50 in U.S. dollars) per piece.

This massive network of express delivery serves as the backbone on which the voluntary delivery of the surgical masks across the country to hospitals in Wuhan is made possible. Without the network of express delivery, the massive, rapid door-to-door delivery from individual donors to doctors will not be a solution to the failure of governmental organizations. In this case, disguising the medical supplies under the name of personal items among massive packages, the donators actively bypass the management and regulation of the central government. Shall we say, then, the massive infrastructural framework in China provides the means through which an alternatively decentralized model of governance emerges? Can the ubiquity of infrastructure, instead of an instrument of surveillance and governance, become a site on which the refusal of the government occurs?

References:

Hao, Nicole. “China Restricts Medical Supply Donations, Despite Dire Need During Virus Outbreak.” The Epoch Times (Jan. 27, 2020).

Hufford, Austen and Evans, Melanie. “Coronavirus Outbreak Strains Global Medical-Mask Market.” The Wall Street Journal (Feb. 6, 2020).

Li, Yuan. “In Coronavirus Fight, China Sidelines an Ally: Its Own People.” New York Times (Feb. 18, 2020).

Wong, W. S. David, Wong, K.K. Kenneth, Chung, Him, and Wang, J. James. 2018. China: A Geographical Perspective. The Guilford Press: New York.

Yangshi Xinwen. “Live on the Red Cross Storage.” (Feb, 2020).

Yuan, Shawn. “Local Red Cross Under Fire Over China Coronavirus Donation Mess.” Aljazeera (Feb. 2, 2020).