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A Chinese Supplier of Dog Products Just Offered Me Face Masks
And that’s an incredibly positive sign
Starting in 2016, I developed a popular pet product on Amazon. Called the Crusty Comb, it was a special flea comb designed to clean the faces of long-haired dogs like my Bichon Frises. Developing the product required working with a factory in China. They created custom bags for me, attached labels, and shipped them to my company here in the United States.
Today I received a message from the same supplier pitching a new product: face masks.
As COVID-19 has spread worldwide and begun to seriously impact the United States, shortages of essential goods have made a bad situation much worse. Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, I’m living under a general lockdown and shelter-in-place order, which restricts all but essential travel.
With supply chains strained, staff reduced and alleged panic buying, stores have been out of products like paper towels, hand sanitizer, Clorox wipes, gloves and surgical masks for over a week. On a visit to CVS pharmacy yesterday, the manager told me that they received a shipment of new supplies (including hand sanitizer) in the morning, and there were lines out the door.
By the time I arrived in the afternoon, the supplies were long gone. They won’t…