Taiwan steps up to help fill protective mask void with offer to DONATE 100,000 per week to U.S. amid coronavirus outbreak

Saturday, March 21, 2020
By Paul Martin

by: JD Heyes
NaturalNews.com
Saturday, March 21, 2020

The Taiwanese government has announced it will begin manufacturing and shipping up to 100,000 hospital protective face masks to the United States beginning immediately.

The news is going to be welcomed especially by American medical personnel who are struggling to find enough of them just to be able to function and do their jobs safely, thanks to massive shortages of PPE — personal protective equipment — like masks, latex gloves and gowns that normally come from China.

“We have enough capacity to cooperate with the U.S.,” an official at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO), Taiwan’s de facto embassy to the United States, told the Washington Examiner.

Granted, the decision wasn’t without some calculation. Taiwan remains essentially isolated, diplomatically, from most of the world because countries don’t want to upset China, which considers the island democracy just a ‘renegade province’ and has threatened to invade if Taipei should ever formally declare independence.

That said, the U.S. is Taiwan’s most important ally, which has been strengthened under President Donald Trump. So clearly, the decision to ramp up mask production also involves geopolitics.

As the Washington Examiner notes:

Chinese President Xi Jinping has ratcheted up pressure on the island government and succeeded in inducing other nations to cut diplomatic ties with Taipei, but Taiwanese officials now are positioned to expand their cooperation with Western powers — not only by providing hospital masks, but also as a source of reliable information on the new contagion.

And of course, the offer by Taiwan comes as new tensions between Washington and Beijing arise over the outbreak of Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19). President Trump, to the consternation of the pro-Beijing U.S. media, routinely refers to the disease as the “China virus,” which angers the Communist government. But it’s true, nonetheless, since that’s where the disease originated.

In any event, Taiwan’s donations will go a long way towards addressing major shortfalls in masks that have led federal officials to recommend healthcare workers “use homemade masks (e.g. bandana, scarf)” if they run short or completely out of medical-grade masks due to the pandemic.

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