STAT June 14, 2021
Almost everyone knows by now that the U.S. was ill-prepared to combat Covid-19. But few realize that the structural problems in the supply chain that plagued the government’s response haven’t been fixed.
It’s crucial to address these vulnerabilities now. There’s no telling when the inevitable next health crisis will hit.
Consider the government’s disastrous distribution of emergency medical supplies. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is in charge of the Strategic National Stockpile of personal protective equipment (PPE) such as N95 respirators, gloves, gowns, and face shields, along with ventilators and certain pharmaceuticals, such as antibiotics and antitoxins.
Yet public records requests have shown that when the pandemic began, FEMA had no established criteria for distributing supplies to states. And...
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