WASHINGTON — As the first alarms sounded in early January that an outbreak of a novel coronavirus in China might ignite a global pandemic, the Trump administration squandered nearly two months that could have been used to bolster the federal stockpile of critically needed medical supplies and equipment.
A review of federal purchasing contracts by the Associated Press shows that federal agencies largely waited until mid-March to begin placing bulk orders of N95 respirator masks, mechanical ventilators and other equipment needed by front-line healthcare workers.
By that time, hospitals in several states were treating thousands of infected patients without adequate equipment and were pleading for shipments from the Strategic National Stockpile. That federal cache of supplies was created more than 20 years ago to help bridge gaps in the medical and pharmaceutical supply chains during a national emergency.
Now, three months into the crisis, that stockpile is nearly drained, just as the numbers of patients needing critical care is surging. Some state and local officials report receiving broken ventilators and decade-old rotted masks.
“We basically wasted two months,” Kathleen Sebelius, who served as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services during the Obama administration, told AP.
HHS did not respond to questions about why federal officials waited to order medical supplies until stocks were running critically low. But President Trump and his appointees have urged state and local governments, and hospitals, to buy their own masks and breathing machines.
“The notion of the federal stockpile was it’s supposed to be our stockpile,” Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and adviser, said April 2 at a White House briefing. “It’s not supposed to be state stockpiles that they then use.”
Because of the fractured federal response to COVID-19, governors say they’re now bidding against federal agencies and each other for scarce supplies, driving up prices.
“You now literally will have a company call you up and say, ‘Well, California just outbid you,’” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said March 31. “It’s like being on eBay with 50 other states, bidding on a ventilator.”
For nearly a month, Trump rebuffed calls from Cuomo and others to use his authority under the Defense Production Act to order companies to increase production of ventilators and personal protective equipment.
Trump finally relented last week, saying he will order companies to ramp up production of critical supplies. By then, the U.S. had the world’s highest number of confirmed cases of COVID-19.
Trump spent January and February playing down the threat from the new virus. As the World Health Organization on Jan. 30 declared the outbreak a global public health emergency, Trump assured the American people that the virus was “very well under control.”
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