@Exceller ..."
Why conveniently overlook that the Chinese knew Coronavirus was out of control and bought mass supplies that we would eventually need when WE discovered the TRUTH"
That's not quite correct. We have known this would be bad since late January, those of us paying attention anyway. It was obvious we would need the medical supplies, but so do they and everybody else.
Where were all these medical supplies manufactured?? I'd guess mostly in China, and if not the finished goods at least the materials needed for them. If we had the manufacturing here then we could have been producing enough to allow for some to be sent overseas, but we buy it in, have it for sale when there is an obvious problem, then complain that market forces worked!
In a free market economy, there is not much point in complaining about things that are in short supply. We even have a govt stockpile, IIRC something like 20M masks were mentioned by the health minister early on. I can remember hearing that and thinking what an idiot, we will need way in excess of that number.
All the planning and 'stockpiles' for a pandemic/epidemic were for a 'mild' one, because it was too expensive to plan for a real one.
Now we are finding out how expensive a real pandemic is, and the pitiful planning that went ahead of it.
There is no point blaming those that used the rules of the free market to their advantage, it is those that lacked planning that deserve the spray.
