Thread by @HeidiNBC

👉NEWS:

U.S. docs, nurses & hospitals send letter to Trump:

"Immediately use the DPA to increase the domestic production of medical supplies and equipment that hospitals, health systems, physicians, nurses and all front line providers so desperately need. ...

American Hospital Association, the American Medical Association and the American Nurses Association

"have concerns that increasingly there are dwindling supplies of N95 respirators, isolation gowns, isolation masks, surgical masks, eye protection, intensive care unit equipment

and diagnostic testing supplies in areas that had the first community outbreaks and in many other areas of the country.

Even with an infusion of supplies from the strategic stockpile and other federal resources, there will not be enough medical supplies, including ventilators,

to respond to the projected COVID-­‐19 outbreak. We have heard of health care providers reusing masks or resorting to makeshift alternatives for masks.

#PPEshortage

*Using the DPA would mean Trump directing companies to produce supplies that meet hospital demand, based on ..

#CoronavirusPandemic modeling. It would also give manufacturers confidence that there would be a market for massive numbers of supplies they are commanded to produce.

So far, Trump has said companies are doing enough voluntarily.

This is a big rebuke of that.

Oh, and sorry, DPA = 1950 Defense Production Act, which require companies to produce "orders deemed necessary for national defense."

It also allows POTUS to designate materials "to be prohibited from hoarding or price-gouging."