The Biden administration has invoked the Defense Production Act to prioritize production of N95s and other medical supplies. But even with those measures, U.S. hospitals remain worried about their supply of these medical masks despite efforts by factories to churn out billions more.
Managing those costs and complexities has made the past year extremely busy for Mike Bowen, the co-owner of Prestige Ameritech. He and his partner started the company in 2005; it is one of the few makers of N95s based in the United States.
"I've gotten requests for maybe a billion and a half masks if you add it up," Bowen told NPR in late February of last year. At the time, Bowen's company could produce 75,000 N95s a month.
