Tipsheet

Call to Action: My Pillow's Mike Lindell Announces He's Making Medical Masks to Help Combat Wuhan Coronavirus Outbreak

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  March 26, 2020 4:30 PM

With medical supplies not where they should be in the amid this Wuhan Coronavirus outbreak in the U.S., the Trump administration is doing the best it can stabilizing the chain of supply. Medical masks were exhausted during the 2009 Swine Flu outbreak that infected 60 million Americans and killed 12,000. The Obama administration never restocked the supply. We’re also in need of ventilators. While Vice President Mike Pence said that equipment used by anesthesiologists can be converted into ventilators, we’re still in need—and American capitalism and businesses have been mobilizing to help out and do their part. Mike Lindell of My Pillow announced that his factories will start making medical masks to meet demands needed in states that were hit hard by the Wuhan virus. Lindell said that 75 percent of his manufacturing base will be shifted towards making masks (via Fox 9):

CEO Mike Lindell says about 75% of MyPillow's production will now be making cotton face masks for health care workers. He says about 90% of the company's sewers will be working on the masks.

"We have capacity to make a lot of things at big rates and we’re going to be going hopefully from 10,000 units a day to 50,000 units a day in a very short period of time," said Lindell.

Lindell says it took about three weeks to shift production as it was difficult at first to get a supply of elastics needed to create the masks. At this time, he says components are not available to make other types of masks, so his company focused on making the 100% cotton masks. He says MyPillow worked with a coalition from President Donald Trump's administration to get the proper design.

“Something is better than nothing to get [health care workers] through,” he said.

Right now, Bernie Sanders and his folks are bashing capitalism. Some lefties are even suggesting that this recent pandemic is a time to consider other models because they never let a crisis go to waste, this is a time where we should be in awe of American innovation and business. The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel, responding to 2020 candidate Bernie Sanders’ attacks on the pharmaceutical industry, wrote that at the end of this—‘Big Pharma’ will be responsible for saving countless lives:

The left is never apt to let a serious crisis go to waste, as we see with its daily use of the coronavirus pandemic to bash the Republican administration. The bigger danger is the efforts it is already making to exploit the panic for its longer-term goal of destroying U.S. capitalism.

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Government will save us? How’s that working out for Italy?

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The “crooks” at drug company Roche had started on their own high-volume test in January, and were finally able to get approval from the Food and Drug Administration. Google is up with a website advising people on symptoms; retailers like Walmart and CVS are converting parking lots for drive-through tests; private labs are standing by to process them.

As for other “moneyed interests,” no fewer than 30 Big Pharma and small biotech firms are racing for treatments and vaccines. Moderna turned around a vaccine batch in just 42 days. Gilead Sciences is already in Phase 3 trials for its remdesivir treatment for Covid-19. Straight off President Trump’s announcement of FDA approval for antimalarial drugs to treat the disease, Bayer announced it would donate three million chloroquine tablets.

Meanwhile, the loathsome “multimillionaires” at Comcast, Verizon and Sprint are guaranteeing to keep Americans online for the next two months, regardless of who can pay. Adobe and Google are making remote-learning tools available to schools, universities and parents. U-Haul is offering free self-storage to college kids. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are suspending foreclosures. The list of corporations voluntarily offering sick leave, pay for contractors and vendors, work-at-home flexibility, and donations to affected communities is enormous—and inspiring, especially given the general financial distress.

The point is we don’t need a socialist government to tell Americans what to do in a time of crisis. They’re already doing it on their own. My Pillow is making masks. The drug companies are racing to develop a vaccine and their treatments, and every other company is tweaking things to accommodate the self-quarantine situation we’re in—and it was all done without the guns from agents of an authoritarian apparatus pointed at our heads.