COVID-19: medical equipment shortages revive innovation
Masks, gowns, ventilators and hand sanitiser ran short in many countries. Scarcity made creativity and innovation more valuable than ever.
Creativity and innovation matter more than ever when the availability of medical equipment becomes a major concern. During the COVID-19 pandemic, masks, gowns, ventilators and alcohol-based hand rubs ran short in many countries at once.
The scale of the ordering tells the story. Belgium ordered 17 million additional surgical masks, bringing its total order to more than 130 million, of which 27 million had been delivered and over 14 million already distributed.
What scarcity changed
When a product cannot be bought at any price, manufacturers who had never made it start to. The crisis pulled textile firms into mask production, engineering workshops into ventilator components, and distilleries into sanitiser.
It also changed how facilities buy. A single supplier for a critical line stopped looking like efficiency and started looking like exposure — a lesson worth keeping now that supply has normalised.