A week ago, I joined a group of volunteers to help source and ship medical supplies from China to Europe so our frontline staff has everything they need to fight the coronavirus.
My work has mainly focused on verifying product certifications and I HAVE THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS 

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Most governments ensure that imported goods meet their required safety rules through developing standards, requiring manufactures to hire certification organizations to verify their work, and providing a mechanism for validating these certificates.
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A strong certification system removes many blockers for (international) trade, as it brings trust into a free market which can’t always rely on reputation. It reduces the risk that you are buying a faulty product. This is especially needed during a crisis.
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For most medical equipment, these types of certifications are required. In the European Union, this is done through the CE certification process.
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Replying to @thijsniks
Wait: in this *special situation*, EU has issued a recommendation (EU 2020/403), that PPE *without* CE certification may be used. It´s more than checking papers, now. In some cases, it´s about checking actual usability: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32020H0403 …
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Replying to @KlimaZen
True, but product still needs to be at the level of the regulation, even though the certification itself doesn’t have to be. A good move, but our operation isn’t large enough to buy products without proper certificates and determine conformity ourselves.
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Replying to @thijsniks
KlimaZen Retweeted NOS
In Germany, DEKRA does these tests for free. I think TNO does it as well. That's how they found out those 1.3 million masks were not fit for use. Just be extra careful, since masks like these may be wandering around on the (black) market.https://twitter.com/NOS/status/1243973100225679360?s=19 …
KlimaZen added,
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