Prevention Matters

TIME reports that, if the H1N1 virus reaches full-fledged pandemic proportions, there won't be enough face masks to go around. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) says the nation would need more than 30 billion masks. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Strategic National Stockpile currently contains only 119 million masks - less than 1% of the goal health officials set in 2007.

The U.S. has one mask for every three Americans (masks are not supposed to be shared), while Australia has 2.5 masks per resident and Great Britain boasts six. And 90% of masks sold in the U.S. now come from Mexico or China, who would would be unlikely to export their supplies to meet a huge U.S. order before making sure their own populations were fully protected.

Mexican police dealing with the swine flu epidemic there have arrested 13 individuals accused of selling surgical masks on the street. This led Health Economist blogger Jason Shafrin to examine the ethics associated with providing free surgical masks.

If the government stayed out of the picture and allowed private enterprise to address the surgical mask situation during an epidemic, "manufacturers of surgical masks would receive the same amount of money, but instead of getting paid by the government, they would be paid by firms," Shafrin says. "Firms would be the winners in that they could resale the masks at a profit. Wealthy and middle class households would be able to purchase the masks and poor families would not."

Another argument for free distribution of surgical masks is to prevent corruption, Shafrin says. "If individuals can sell surgical masks at a profit, government workers will have an incentive to give away surgical masks to their friends," he says. "Their friends can collect rents from their receipt of a large quantity of free masks."