Not enough face masks are made in America to deal with coronavirus

I have questions. Why was there apparently no demand for mask options - some way for hospitals and the government to pay the manufacturer to buy extra machines and keep them on standby? Even with an immediate example of why they're needed? It seems like not only a failure of government but the entire medical industry.

From the article:

Prestige Ameritech, for example, owns a limited number of machines that assemble, sew and shape the masks. A decade ago, it ramped up production in response to the swine flu outbreak by buying more machines and hiring 150 new workers.

"We made a really big mistake," Bowen says of that decision. It took about four months to build the new machines, which are as long as a school bus and cost as much as $1 million.

By the time they were ready, the swine flu crisis had ended, demand vaporized, and Prestige Ameritech almost went bankrupt. "One day — and it is literally almost like one day — it just quits. The demand is over, the phones stop ringing," Bowen says.

To make matters worse, the hospitals and medical supply companies suddenly had a glut of masks; they stopped buying for months.