An update on Prestige Ameritech and American mask-making

Remember this guy? Prestige Ameritech is a US mask manufacturer, and he was refusing to sell masks without a 5 year supply agreement earlier this year. How is he doing these days? Via the New York Times, an update:

...Alarmed by the federal government’s lack of response but determined to pitch in, Mr. Bowen invested millions of dollars to build more machines and he hired 200 additional workers, allowing Prestige Ameritech to increase production to six million masks a month, up from 75,000 in March. “I did it all without a penny of government help,” said Mr. Bowen, whose company is one of the country’s largest domestic mask producers.

By next spring, he said, his factory will be producing 10 million masks a month. Still, Mr. Bowen worries he will be saddled with unsold product. “A few months ago my phone was literally ringing all the time and I was getting thousands of emails per day,” he said. “Right now my phone just isn’t ringing that much.”

The problem, Mr. Bowen said, is that the hospitals that were once so eager to purchase his N95 masks have begun buying cheaper products from China, which have become more widely available in the months since Beijing brought its pandemic under control...

Sounds like Mr. Bowen didn't get too many folks locked into a supply agreement. There was a lot of talk of "decoupling", and I imagine it will come before long, but it's not here yet...