“One Big Con Job”: Response To Mike Pence Delivering Empty Boxes They Claimed Were Filled With Life Saving Supplies
In a video surfaced today, Vice President Mike Pence is seen delivering empty boxes of PPE as a publicity stunt. In response, Coronavirus War Room director Zac Petkanas issued the following statement:
“From the beginning, the Trump Administration’s coronavirus response has been one big con job. From lying that anyone can get a test to fraudulently promising a vaccine was right around the corner, the White House will say or do anything to create the perception that their bungling hasn’t made a bad situation even worse.
“There couldn’t possibly be a better metaphor that captures Donald Trump’s broken promises to address the testing and mask shortages than sending his Vice President to deliver empty boxes they claimed were filled with life-saving supplies.”
BACKGROUND:
Federal Incompetence Has Led to Persistent Supply Shortages, Even as Trump Claims Victory
Washington Post: Too Few Masks, Tests And Workers: How Covid-19 Spread Through Maryland Nursing Homes
- “Former and current employees at Sagepoint [Senior Living Services] and six other nursing homes in Maryland say the virus spread rapidly as their facilities struggled with shortages of staff, testing and personal protective equipment. At several nursing homes, employees said, managers played down the severity of outbreaks and did not provide masks and gowns until patients had tested positive.” [Washington Post, 5/6/20]
CNN: Nation’s Stockpile Proves To Be No Match For A Pandemic
- “The stockpile’s inadequacies quickly came to light in the coronavirus pandemic — a devastating health crisis that experts have long predicted. Trump delayed striking deals with the private sector and invoking the Defense Production Act (DPA) to produce more medical supplies, making a bad situation worse. And states — bidding against one another and other countries for supplies at sharp markups — turned to the quick relief of the stockpile, only to find it understocked and the federal stewards overseeing it in disarray.” [CNN, 5/6/20]
ABC 11: Cash-Strapped Counties Conserving PPE Like Water In A Drought
ProPublica: The TSA Hoarded 1.3 Million N95 Masks Even Though Airports Are Empty And It Doesn’t Need Them
Appleton Post-Crescent: Wisconsin To Receive 100,000 Face Masks From Taiwan As Coronavirus Cases Continue To Rise
- “Wisconsin will receive 100,000 face masks from the Taiwanese government as hospitals across the state continue to face shortages of personal protective equipment amid the coronavirus pandemic… Twenty percent of Wisconsin coronavirus patients have been hospitalized since the virus arrived here, and dozens of hospitals have just a week’s worth or less of masks, goggles and other equipment to protect employees, according to the Wisconsin Hospital Association.” [Appleton Post-Crescent, 5/5/20]
NBC Dallas Fort-Worth: Despite Rising Death Toll, Some Texas Nursing Homes Still Struggle to Find PPE
- “Despite the surge in COVID-19-related deaths and illnesses in Texas nursing homes, the state has no dedicated pipeline for getting the protective equipment to those facilities to help them battle the virus, leaving them to wait in line with others as the mortality rate grows.” [NBC Dallas Fort-Worth, 5/4/20]
WCNC: North Carolina Is Low Or Completely Out Of Certain Critical Supplies Of PPE
- “A WCNC Charlotte Defenders investigation is discovering critical supplies in North Carolina are low or completely out… WCNC Charlotte is learning the state is only receiving a small percentage of some of the supplies it’s ordered. With some supplies, you can measure what’s left in months, but with other items, only a single day of supplies are on hand or even less. According to state data, there are zero days of supply left of gowns in North Carolina state warehouses. The supply of N-95 masks is not much more; there’s only one day of supplies left, according to the state data.” [WCNC, 5/4/20]
Wall Street Journal: Low-Quality Masks Infiltrate U.S. Coronavirus Supply
- “U.S. regulators and state officials are finding a significant number of imported N95-style masks fall short of certification standards, complicating the response to the coronavirus crisis and potentially putting some front-line workers at greater risk. Recent tests by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health found that about 60 percent of 67 different types of imported masks tested allowed in more tiny particles in at least one sample than U.S. standards normally permit…. With domestic production and stockpiles falling far short of demand, the tests suggest a high risk that hospitals, local authorities and companies are in many cases paying steep prices for substandard medical gear of uncertain provenance.” [Wall Street Journal, 5/4/20]
Business Insider: The US Has Imported Millions Of Low-Quality Masks That Don’t Block Virus Particles Enough, Putting Lives At Risk
New England Journal of Medicine: Critical Supply Shortages — The Need for Ventilators and Personal Protective Equipment During The Covid-19 Pandemic
- “Shortages have led to pleas from individual U.S. health care providers trying to secure adequate supplies of PPE. The situation has become so dire that some providers are using social media (with tags like #GetMePPE) and have even set up websites to obtain PPE directly. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that during crisis situations, N95 respirator masks be used only during aerosol-generating procedures, but that means risking exposure of health care workers using less protective surgical masks around patients with confirmed or suspected Covid-19 infection. Additional guidelines from the CDC include reusing masks and respirators intended for one-time use and, if stocks are fully depleted, using scarves or bandanas. The evidence to support these recommendations is thin.” [New England Journal of Medicine, 4/30/20
Doctors And Medical Experts Call For The Federal Government To Coordinate Efforts To Adequately Supply States And Hospitals.
- Megan L. Ranney, M.D., M.P.H., Valerie Griffeth, M.D., Ph.D., and Ashish K. Jha, M.D., M.P.H.: “Beyond increasing the supply, a crucial role for the government is to coordinate efforts to ensure that the areas hardest hit at any given time are receiving needed equipment. Individual state governments and health care systems are currently competing for resources, and those resources are not necessarily being distributed on the basis of need. Surges of Covid-19 cases are unlikely to happen in all parts of the country at once, so there is an opportunity to coordinate the filling of gaps.” [New England Journal of Medicine, 4/30/20]
Boston Globe: Masks State Distributed Were Deficient, Tests Show, Sparking Concerns Among Police
- “The state, which has been accumulating respirator masks however it can amid a national shortage and distributing them to people who most need them, last week began notifying police departments, nursing homes, and other recipients that recent tests it commissioned from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology revealed that some of the masks provide little protection. While the tests showed some of the masks filtered out more than 90 percent of airborne particles, none performed as well as the US industry standard N95 mask, which filters out at least 95 percent of airborne particles, according to the publicly posted results. One type of mask sent out by the state filtered only 28.1 percent of airborne particles. Another type performed at only 52.3 percent, according to the results. State officials did not disclose how many of those masks were distributed or to whom.” [Boston Globe, 4/29/20]
Kaiser Health News: Trump Says N95 Masks Can Be Sterilized For Reuse. Only In A Pinch, Experts Warn.
- “As COVID-19 cases continue to climb, front-line health care workers are decrying unsafe working conditions — in particular, describing inadequate access to personal protective equipment, or PPE. Many hospitals and state lawmakers blame Washington, saying the Trump administration has not done enough to make this critical protective gear available. But at a recent press conference, President Donald Trump suggested those claims are overblown, asserting instead that hospitals have the tools they need to sanitize and reuse protective facewear.” [Kaiser Health News, 4/29/20]
- “In fact, the question of reusing masks — specifically, the highly effective N95 respirators that best protect wearers from COVID-19 ― has emerged as a major worker-safety concern. Traditionally, the masks have been designated only for single use. But with hospitals running low on protective equipment, many seek to stretch their supplies.” [Kaiser Health News, 4/29/20]
Iowa Starting Line: [Rep. Abby] Finkenauer: If Trump Uses DPA For Plants, Must Also For PPE
- Rep. Abby Finkenauer (D-IA): “I’ve been calling on the President for weeks to use his authority under the Defense Production Act to order the production of personal protective equipment for frontline workers… “If he’s going to invoke the DPA now for food production facilities, he absolutely should do so for PPE.” [Iowa Starting Line, 4/30/20]