The COVID-19 pandemic has created a global free-for-all for manufacturing protective equipment, especially face masks. Now factories that once produced curtains or other items are churning them out.
Copyright 2020 NPR
Rob Schmitz is NPR's international correspondent based in Berlin, where he covers the human stories of a vast region reckoning with its past while it tries to guide the world toward a brighter future. From his base in the heart of Europe, Schmitz has covered Germany's levelheaded management of the COVID-19 pandemic, the rise of right-wing nationalist politics in Poland and creeping Chinese government influence inside the Czech Republic.