As it happens, I was on a call Sunday morning with 3 folks who work in different local (Boston-area) hospitals. All three said that, while not all institutions were behaving the same way, their particular institutions were already abandoning standard protocols in order to deeply conserve their stock of equipment like masks. One said, verbatim, “we’re acting as if we won’t get any more supply” of masks and gowns until a vaccine is developed.
That said, I think your two week threshold is not unreasonable. These folks are not going to run out of masks anywhere near that quickly, and probably wouldn’t substantively increase their usage rate unless they received fairly massive supplies (more than a few individuals are likely able to donate), so donations to them wouldn’t be particularly time sensitive right now. And I think you’re right that some other institutions are not as conscientious about this yet.
As it happens, I was on a call Sunday morning with 3 folks who work in different local (Boston-area) hospitals. All three said that, while not all institutions were behaving the same way, their particular institutions were already abandoning standard protocols in order to deeply conserve their stock of equipment like masks. One said, verbatim, “we’re acting as if we won’t get any more supply” of masks and gowns until a vaccine is developed.
That said, I think your two week threshold is not unreasonable. These folks are not going to run out of masks anywhere near that quickly, and probably wouldn’t substantively increase their usage rate unless they received fairly massive supplies (more than a few individuals are likely able to donate), so donations to them wouldn’t be particularly time sensitive right now. And I think you’re right that some other institutions are not as conscientious about this yet.