Miyo’s owner’s mission to get virus masks to SC faced criticism, setbacks, new hope

A Columbia restaurateur is attempting to import high grade protective face masks as medical workers deal with dwindling supplies, spurring questions about what role an outsider to the medical field should play in helping fight the coronavirus.

Michelle Wang said her mission is to bring masks to Columbia to help stop the spread of the virus, bolster hospital supplies, assist people who have lost their income, prevent deaths and share a gospel of love and caring in a time of social distancing. To Wang, distributing masks is a divine calling.

“I feel like this is God’s work,” Wang said.

She was ready to spend over $100,000 to get masks into Columbia. But her plans, which she said includes charging people $4 per mask and selling the masks at cost to hospitals to recoup her expenses, has been criticized by some on social media.

The effort also has been put on hold for now because of federal regulations.

Wang, who came to Columbia from China in the mid-1990s, is the owner of Miyo’s and the M Gourmet Group of restaurants, such as M Vista, which specialize in Asian fusion cuisine. Her transition from running restaurants to trying to bring protective masks to Columbia hearkens back to China’s Hunan Province during World War II where her grandparents lived.

Wang’s grandfather was a Chinese medical doctor who fought against Japan’s imperialist army when it invaded China in the 1930s and 40s. He died in the conflict, Wang said. Her grandmother threw herself off a bridge and died before a man could rape her, she said.

Wang never met her grandparents but heard stories of them from her father.

Now, her grandparents’ spirit of resistance boils in her as she tries to take part in efforts to slow COVID-19 in Columbia and South Carolina with her business connections. She called it a war against personal suffering.

Wang’s armor in this fight against the virus is respirator masks, the typically puffy white masks used by medical professionals as protection against the microscopic virus.

In a social media post, Wang said, “Let there be Light, Let there be Masks!”

Chill? “That’s not my conscience.”

In January, Wang and her family were in China as that country began to deal with the outbreak of the coronavirus. People wore the respirator masks as protection against the virus.

She returned to Columbia later in January, and COVID-19 hit the state two months later.

Wang had to close the dinning rooms of her six restaurants, keeping the businesses open for takeout only and leaving most of her more than 100 employees without an income.

As March progressed, Richland County had more and more confirmed cases until it had the highest number of cases in the state. Wang heard the stories of hospitals running low on supplies of protective equipment.

She wanted to help. She thought of the masks that people wore in China. If she could get more of the respirator face masks to Columbia, they could help stop people from getting sick, supply hospitals, and provide her employees with a new way to make money, she believed.

With masks in short supply in the United States, Wang’s importing mission began with a call to a friend in China. Wang asked the friend to get as many masks as she could. The friend went to pharmacies in the mountains of China and bought masks, Wang said. Eighty masks showed up at Wang’s door.

Wang connected to an importer in California who said she could get Wang 20,000 masks. A doctor had a supplier in Singapore that was willing to sell Wang 5,500 of the masks. Wang cut a check for almost $14,000 for masks from Singapore.

A deeply Christian person, who often quotes Bible verses (she asked that Psalm 34:1-3 be mentioned in this story), Wang believes God sent her a sign that she was on the right path. That sign came in an email.

An acquaintance and Chinese goods exporter sent her a message saying he was working with a manufacturer outside Shanghai that made respirator masks. Wang said knew the emailer personally, and she and knew the factory he was working with. She arranged to have 50,000 masks manufactured and imported to Chicago, where she would arrange to have the items picked up and brought to Columbia. Wang was ready to wire $110,000 for the masks.

“Even if I lose every penny from the $110,000, I say, ‘Hallelujah,’” Wang said.

Her plan was to offer some mask to hospitals, helping medical workers who were low on supplies protective equipment.

She would also set up a way for people to order the masks from her directly, allowing individuals to wear the masks if they had to go out in public. For a fee, the masks would be delivered to people’s doors by employees of her restaurants who were no longer working.

The delivery also included a suggestion that the customer tip the delivery driver generously. Wang compared this job to food delivery drivers. Her mask deliverers would keep the delivery fee and tips, helping them to bring in some income.

People close to her keep telling her that she’s become too intense in her efforts and that she needs “to chill” Wang said. “But that’s not my conscience.”

Concern or profits?

While Wang felt her plan had divine inspiration, the plan garnered earthly criticisms.

After posting on social media about the plan and ways people could order from 20 to 100 masks from her at $4 each, Wang was accused of profiteering off a crisis.

On Amazon similar masks cost between $2 and $5.

Wang said her $4 cost included part of the delivery fee that would be given to her driver, who otherwise would be out of work because of the coronavirus.

Instead of profiting, she hoped to create a way for others to make money, Wang said.

The $4 would include more than a mask. She planned to include tea and other items that she believed would lift people’s spirits.

The state Attorney General’s Office said it received one complaint about Wang’s offer to sell masks. But the office is not investigating and likely won’t because the price is inline with the fluctuating demand for respirator masks.

Wang is not alone in her efforts to get more masks into the United States. Vox reported on a “gray market” of importers working to get respirators as supplies run low.

Critics on social media also said that Wang was contributing to the supply shortage hospitals face. Her belief that masks are helpful for non-medical workers was a misconception, critics said, a point that has been reinforced by the federal Centers for Disease Control.

The CDC “does not recommend the routine use of respirators (face masks) outside of workplace settings (in the community),” the agency says.

But recent media reports have said that the CDC and other government health leaders are reconsidering the stance and may broaden the recommendation for wearing masks amid the spread of COVID-19.

Critics also claimed that Wang was harming medical workers by taking supplies of respirators. If she had a connection to getting respirator masks, she should donate those to hospitals, some people said.

Wang said she has contacted hospitals about purchasing the masks. She would sell the respirator masks to hospitals at cost, meaning she would forego any profit, Wang said.

Prisma Health and Lexington Medical Center confirmed that Wang had been in contact.

“What she (Wang) is doing is wonderful and we appreciate that,” said Lexington Medical Center spokesperson Jennifer Wilson. “But it’s certainly not an anomaly.”

After putting out a call for donations of respirators and other items and saying Lexington Medical Center was willing to purchase “items from vendors at fair market value,” the hospital received many offers from people with connections to protective equipment manufacturers, Wilson said.

Hospitals have recently started to experience shortages of medical supplies, according to Schipp Ames, spokesperson for the South Carolina Hospital Association.

The association has a team dedicated to vetting new sellers and manufacturers of protective equipment that are popping up as the coronavirus drains supplies.

The association is warning hospitals to “really use discretion when dealing with suppliers outside their normal vendors,” Schipp said, adding the association has “all the confidence in our hospitals to vet the institutions.”

Hospitals have strict standards for protective equipment and have teams in place to ensure that purchased equipment adheres to those standards, Schipp said.

But Wang’s mission of getting masks to hospitals and people, as well as provide her out-of-work restaurant employees income, may not be fulfilled.

Customs

As Wang talked with exporters and importers of respirator masks from Asia, the federal Food and Drug Administration authorized different kinds of respirators to be imported into the US to combat the shortage of the protective equipment. But the FDA left the type of respirator masks, known as the KN95 respirator masks, that Wang was trying to import off the administration’s approved list.

By law, respirator masks not approved by the FDA cannot be imported in the U.S. even if the specifications are equivalent to FDA standards, according to BuzzFeed. The KN95 respirators are widely used outside the U.S. and are the standard respirator used in hospitals in China and other Asian countries.

Though the CDC determined KN95 masks are “suitable alternatives,” BuzzFeed reported.

Hospital workers at Prisma Health recently spoke out about the hospital disallowing nurses to wear N95 masks when they are around some patients who have tested positive for COVID-19. The new hospital rule, which follows new guidelines from the CDC, was meant to address the shortage of highly protective N95 masks.

The State contacted the FDA and a spokesperson said that KN95 masks “meet similar standards” to N95 masks but that the administration did not include KN95 masks in their list of acceptable alternatives “due to challenges in determining the authenticity of imported product,” adding it had “encountered fraudulent products identified as KN95s.”

The FDA said that masks used outside of medical settings are not regulated by the administration and can be distributed for general, non-medical use but that importers should make sure the masks they’re getting are authentic KN95 masks.

Hospitals are not likely to accept items not listed as FDA alternatives for N95 masks for liability reasons, though medical providers could accept if the need was dire, BuzzFeed reported.

The masks she ordered were likely to get hung up in customs, Wang said. With the prospect of spending $110,00 on respirators that she couldn’t offer to hospitals, Wang canceled her order for the 50,000 KN95 respirators. She’s getting a refund on the $14,000 she spent for the 5,500 KN95 respirators from Singapore.

“It’s disgusting,” she said.

Her hope to continue her mission to bring more respirator masks to the hospitals of Columbia is through a connection in California who may be able to get her 20,000 FDA approved masks.

She wanted to give back to Columbia, Wang said, the town that allowed her to fulfill her business ambitions and to provide for her family.

But now her confidence in American values was shaken. She worked hard to get the respirator masks, Wang said. She was willing to spend capital on the masks. But now government regulations won’t let her get the masks.

The 80 masks Wang did have, she gave away to friends and acquaintances.

She wanted to call her mask-providing initiative “Masks for Love.”

But after her letdown with importing masks and what she perceived as unfair criticism, she said in a text on March 31 “my heart is dead at this point.”

Then on April 2 Wang read an article about the Massachusetts governor striking a deal with Chinese suppliers and getting a shipment of N95 masks from the country. Now, she believes the door is open for masks coming from China, which could help her efforts to get masks to South Carolina. She said she’s going to ask for Gov. Henry McMaster’s help to import masks.

“Let’s get the ball rolling and get our South Carolina people the masks they need,” she said.

“I won’t give up,” she said.

This story was originally published April 2, 2020 at 2:32 PM.

David Travis Bland

The State

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David Travis Bland is The State’s editorial editor. In his prior position as a reporter, he was named the 2020 South Carolina Journalist of the Year by the SC Press Association. He graduated from the University of South Carolina in 2010. Support my work with a digital subscription