Mask | Mask Making Machine Crazy: Key to Fight the Novel Coronavirus Epidemic

What is the biggest concern in 2020? That is the novel coronavirus. The resulting social phenomena continue to refresh our perceptions: the increased risk of economic downturn, crazy buying of the medical mask, repeated lax prevention and control and so on. As a concerned person close to the epidemic (less than 200Km from Wuhan), after consulting at least 50 copies of the information, to talk little personal feelings about the epidemic, hope to help everyone.

1 The severity of the global novel coronavirus epidemic exceeds most people’s expectations
1.1 Current situation of novel coronavirus epidemic
1.2 What is the probability of the global spread of novel coronavirus?

2 How many gaps in the mask | mask making machine in the case of novel coronavirus epidemic?
2.1 Supply-and-demand analysis in China
2.2 Supply-and-demand analysis outside China

3 Mask | mask making machine: The key to fight the Epidemic
3.1 In China, the demand for the current market of masks and mask making machines exceeds the supply. The market conditions are as follows:
3.2 Are they all crazy?

 1 The severity of the global novel coronavirus epidemic exceeds most people’s expectations 

1.1 Current situation of novel coronavirus epidemic

Figure 1.1.1: Trends of existing and cumulative diagnosis in China:

Figure 1.1.2: Global (excluding China), cumulative diagnosis and new diagnosis

Figure 1.1.3: Comparison of new diagnoses in China/other countries:

From the chart above, since February 26, 27, the number of daily infections abroad have begun to outpace China and risen steadily. As of 2020-03-09 10:30, except China, the cumulative number of infections reached 28861 over 100 foreign countries and more than 50 people are infected in 26 countries (to be updated). The foreign epidemic has developed rapidly, and the cumulative number of confirmed cases rose exponentially, far exceeding expectations. A number of experts have warned that the novel coronavirus epidemic could get out of control and become an epidemic that coexists with humans for a long time.

1.2 What is the probability of the global spread of novel coronavirus?

Figure 1.2.1: Comparative table of data on the epidemic situation in China and abroad:

From figure 1.2.1, for the three days from February 21st to 23rd (yellow section of the table), the stage of the epidemic abroad is similar to the three days of china from January 23rd to 25th (green section of the table). If there were some measures such as strict screening, tracking observation and isolation of patients and reduce their mobility, it may be possible to control the spread of the epidemic.

However, the abroad did not pay attention, from February 21st to 23rd (yellow section of the table), the epidemic spread faster, but no country really pay attention to it, at that time, many countries, including South Korea, Italy and other countries did not recommend people to wear medical masks, and the government did not take any measures, so missed a best period of prevention and control. Since March 2nd (red part), the abroad epidemic has entered the climbing stage, the number of infected people has risen rapidly, and the epidemic has spread from abroad to China, the epidemic spread globally quickly.

Figure 1.2.2: Global infection region

Also, has the novel coronavirus mutated? How to mutate? This is one focus of academic research.

Combined with the above, if other countries can do as much as China do, if there is no more serious virus mutation, then referring to China’s epidemic prevention results, optimistic estimates that the impact of the virus will last about three months. If control is lax or the virus mutates, I can boldly predict that the risk of the epidemic may be significantly higher than that of the other epidemics of the past few decades, and the negative impact of the economic downturn will be unpredictable.

 2 How many gaps in the mask | mask making machine in the case of novel coronavirus epidemic? 

2.1 Supply–and-demand analysis in China

China has 1400 million people and needs about 920 million masks one day.
Of these, 533 million staff and 276 million students. If work and start school completely, one person uses one mask per day, there needs about 800 million masks per day. Another 600 million people live in homes, five-person use one mask per day, there need about 120 million one day.
Notice: Medical staff use at least two masks or more a day.

Chart 2.1: Supply and demand for masks and mask making machine in China

Because of the serious mask shortage, until the beginning of March, most schools in China were closed and a considerable number of enterprises have not been able to start work normally, which has seriously affected the normal operation of the Chinese economy.

2.2 Supply–and-demand analysis outside China

Based on 18 countries (South Korea, Italy, Iran, Japan, etc.) with more than 50 infections, it affects about 900 million population. According to the annual textile industry data: as the core material for the masks production, meltblown fabric, China accounts for about half of its capacity. As a “world factory” in DongGuan, GuangDong, is also the main production site of mask making machine. Now China’s own needs can not be met, let alone other countries?

Take the United States, which has about 330 million people. The U.S. Department – HHS says the U.S. has only 40 million N95 and medical surgical masks in stock, and if the epidemic is serious, only medical personnel will need 300 million masks, with a gap of 3500 million for the whole population, while the existing capacity and quantity of the United States are far from enough.

As I forecast above, if the global epidemic continues for another three months or more, then the world must unite, use all available resources, and truly establish a global joint defense policy in order to win the battle as soon as possible.

 3 Mask | mask making machine: The key to fight the Epidemic 

Note: All of these are denominated in CNY and can be converted into USD based on the exchange rate of USD/CNY.

3.1 In China, the demand for the current market of masks and mask making machines exceeds the supply. The market conditions are as follows:

Take the medical mask making machine as an example, it’s like the condition when people bought a house ten years ago.

3.2 Are they all crazy?

3.2.1 Taking the disposable medical masks as an example, how to calculate the return on its input by buying a mask making machine and non-woven fabrics?

Income returns = Income from masks – Cost of mask making machine – cloth cost – Labor cost, parts cost, etc.

The following is the key: (the following knowledge has a certain degree of professionalism, if you don’t understand, leave me a message.)

Taking the disposable three-layer medical mask as an example, the size of the mask is about 18cm*18cm, the area is about 324cm², and the gram scale weight of each layer is calculated by 30g/m². What is gram scale weight, how to measure it?

With “324cm² * 30g/m²“, it can be calculated that each mask needs about 0.972g melt-blown nonwovens and 1.942g spunbond nonwovens.
With “1ton / 0.972g” it can be calculated that 1 ton meltblown nonwoven combined with 2 tons spunbond nonwoven (why? because the inside and outside of the mask are spunbond nonwoven, only the middle layer is meltblown nonwoven), which can produce 1 million masks.

The actual output of a fully automatic mask making machine is about 80~90pcs/min, considering the problem of changing materials and proficiency problems, every 24H it can produce about 100,000 masks, is one-tenth of 1 million, use 0.1 tons of melt-blown non-woven and 0.2 tons of spunbond non-woven.

With 24H as the cycle, ￥5 ($0.714) per mask, the income of the mask: 5*100,000=500,000.

Labor cost, parts cost: about ￥1000, melt-blown non-woven fabric costs: ￥25000~30000, spun-bond non-woven fabric costs: ￥6000

 24H revenue: 500,000 – 1,000 – 30,000 – 6,000 = ￥423,000, that is to say, an automatic mask making machine, if continuous production, it can recover the cost up to 2 days. So the market is “crazy “. 

3.2.2 Part state subsidizes the mask manufacturers and acquires disposable makes.

The epidemic will continue for at least three months, and the medical mask gap is huge, so don’t worry about selling it. And some countries are now subsidizing mask manufacturers and acquire disposable makes to control the epidemic better.

However, the market is not as simple as the math problem above, which also involves the purchase link problem, medical mask medical machine stability problem, mask performance testing problem and so on, perhaps you can find the answer you want from this.