‘IT GETS UGLY’

U.S. Stockpile of Protective Equipment Nearly Exhausted: WaPo

“The stockpile was designed to respond to a handful of cities. It was never built or designed to fight a 50-state pandemic,” a DHS official reportedly said.

The emergency stockpile of personal protective equipment for health-care workers is almost completely used up as hospitals across the country are increasingly overwhelmed amid the coronavirus crisis, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday. The federal government’s Strategic National Stockpile of respirator masks, gloves, ventilators, and other medical equipment has surged in demand, which has led to a nationwide shortage and price gouging. “The stockpile was designed to respond to a handful of cities. It was never built or designed to fight a 50-state pandemic,” a DHS official told the Post. “This is not only a U.S. government problem. The supply chain for PPE worldwide has broken down, and there is a lot of price-gouging happening.” President Trump said on Tuesday that “we’re going to have plenty” of life-saving ventilators, and claimed that hospitals were on the receiving end of a heavy flow of equipment from the national stockpile. DHS officials reportedly refuted that claim. “If you can’t protect the people taking care of us, it gets ugly,” one official told the Post.