“Luckily, there was a very grassroots effort with a lot of men and women who like sewing so they could’ve made these masks for people,” Mazo said. At the same time, the state of Connecticut was leveraging relationships with vendors across the globe to get masks to healthcare workers, nursing homes and the general public. “Our procurement department and our emergency operations team basically had to rip up the usual procurement playbook and started scouring the earth for masks wherever we can find them,” Josh Geballe, Connecticut's chief operating officer said. Since then, supply has held steady and for local businesses like Medicine Shoppe Pharmacy in West Hartford, the shelves for masks are slimming down.