A wk ago, we relayed science historian info on the coronavirus pandemic. We tweeted about Tests. We started on resource transfer as it relates to data. Let's take a look at physical equipment, facilities, & materials.

Let's take a look closer at this area:

1. When the USA began its fight against coronavirus, it lacked sufficient facilities, also known as "hospital capacity". America lacked enough hospital beds for everyone anticipated to get extremely sick from the virus. Resources were transferred to build hospital capacity.

2. The next coronavirus resource challenge was ventilators. COVID-19 directly attacked human lungs. To keep people alive from this attack, ventilators must be used for the extreme cases. The USA lacked ventilators in great quantity. Resources were re-directed to fill this need.

It's important to note that re-directing resources to build ventilators was no small task. Ventilators are considered "precision devices" in the manufacturing world. This means the engineering of ventilator components & unit assemblies requires PRECISE design & quality control.

3. The next resource re-direction came w/the sewing & injection molding of PPE gear for hospital workers and essential workers. Suddenly, massive amounts of materials like cotton, plastic, paper for PPE were needed. Stamping & sewing machines, 3D printers were in high demand.

As a side note, at the exact time hospital workers needed cotton, plastic, and paper for PPE, stay-at-home consumers were buying up cotton, paper, and plastic products at panic levels. Cotton, paper, & plastic were needed for COVID-19 test kits. A physical materials nightmare.

4. Now, there's a clamor for physical resources to make COVID-19 tests. Test machines had to be built (they're built). Test swabs must be made (where's the cotton?). Test chemicals must be gathered from overseas (help American chemists!).

Reagents must be created. Oh oh!

Final note, reagent resources for COVID-19 tests aren't created overnight by re-directing needed resources from other places.

Reagents are a mixture of chemicals, proteins, & RNA fragments made specifically to attack COVID-19 DNA structure. Enough RNA is THE resource problem.

So when science historians look at this aspect of the COVID-19 war, resource transference and the complementary supply chain modifications will be a big part of the coronavirus story that came as a big surprise and wasn't anticipated by many around the world.