Companies return from holiday to make masks, goggles, protecticve suits China is working to ramp up production of medical supplies and promote international purchasing to address a supply shortage as part of its broader drive to fight the novel coronavirus outbreak, the country’s top industry regulator said on Sunday. Huang Libin, a spokesman for the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said 20,000 protective suits are now being produced daily, and he emphasized that the ministry is urging more companies to start production soon and to expand international cooperation by purchcasing more supplies from abroad. A shortage of medical supplies, including protective suits, N95 masks and goggles, was reported in Wuhan, Hubei province, the epicenter of the outbreak, Huang said. As of Saturday night, he said, domestic medical supply manufacturers had sent 136,000 protective suits, 134,000 N95 masks and 188,000 pairs of goggles to Hubei province. “About 60 percent of the mask manufacturers have restored production, with more than 10 million masks being made per day, and production of N95 masks for medical protective purposes has reached 600,000 a day,” said Cao Xuejun, deputy director of the ministry’s consumer products industry department. Cao said production capacity has been limited because…