Thread by @BillDedman

While governors are begging for N95 respirator masks to protect health care workers from coronavirus, and citizens are sewing masks, a website with surplus government supplies has been auctioning respirators at a huge mark-up. A thread...
#COVID19
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A pallet of expired N95 respirators sat in a warehouse in Florida last week, the prize in a bidding war among several states. The winning bid: more than $26,000. That's $3.50 per respirator. A year earlier on the same auction site: 25 cents each.
#COVID19
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Sales of surplus medical equipment were called to my attention by Air Force veteran Mark Lindquist in Phoenix. He was looking for respirators to donate to his VA hospital. The auctions made him wonder "if the right hand knows what the left is doing in our country."
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New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and others have complained about federal inaction in distributing medical supplies. "We have acquired everything there is on the market that there is to acquire," Cuomo said today, pleading for ventilators and respirator masks.
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But what hasn't gotten attention is that some of the respirators that government agencies have been bidding against each other to buy started out as government property. Just one t tiny hotspot in a global pandemic of inefficiency.
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The N95 respirators are not the simple rectangular surgical masks that fit loosely. The N95s have the cup-shaped air filters and seal tightly to the face. They get their name because they are certified to block 95 percent of airborne particles.
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Nurses, doctors, and emergency first responders call the N95s the lifesaving barriers they need to protect themselves and patients. President Trump said today that the federal government "is distributing 8 million N95 respirators."
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The respirators warehoused in Lake Worth, Florida, were being auctioned by a surplus-property auction site called GovPlanet. Bidders from New York and California were joined by Florida, New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware.
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GovPlanet sells anything that governments no longer need. Last year, it sold a Marine Corps 4 x 4 Growler vehicle for $47,700, a Bell helicopter from the PA state police for $550,000, and a Beechcraft airplane for $950,000.
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The bidders for the N95 respirators jousted over three days in a furious battle. A year ago on GovPlanet, on April 2, a pallet of 920 of the N95 respirators made by 3M sold for only $230, or 25 cents apiece.
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This January, as buzz about the coronavirus began to spread, the price for N95 respirators jumped to 78 cents apiece on GovPlanet.
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There was a catch when the pallet of 7,680 military-surplus medical respirators went up for auction on the afternoon of Sunday, March 15: The respirators were expired. The boxes were marked with expiration dates in 2011 and 2012.
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But an expired mask is a lot better than no mask. The bidding began at 5:15 p.m. in the East on Sunday, March 15. (At that hour, President Trump was delivering his daily coronavirus briefing, saying we have "tremendous control" over the virus.)
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The first bid of $11,500 came in from Florida, according to the bidding history still visible online. The history discloses the location, but not the identities, of the bidders. Maybe no one else would be watching, and Florida would get N95s for $1.50 apiece.
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After all, the respirators were already in Florida. Twenty minutes later, Bidder 2 from New York arrived, lifting the price $100 to $11,600. By bedtime on the East Coast, $12,000. Florida in the lead.
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Before dawn on Monday, at 5:13 a.m., the word had spread. New Jersey's Bidder 3 was awake and willing to spend $12,100 for respiratory protection. Bidder 4 from Maryland took it up to $13,500. Bidder 5 from Delaware went to $14,100.
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The pace of online bids increased, sometimes 10 bids per minute. By afternoon the West Coast had joined the party, as California's Bidder 6 jumped to $21,200. That was too steep for Delaware, which would have to find its clean breaths someplace else.
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The flashy Bidder 6 from California kept trying to scare off the competition with a cock-of-the-walk bidding strategy, raising each bid by several hundred dollars. But there was no fright in the newest competitor, Bidder 7 from New Jersey, who kept the pace.
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Now only two bidders were left, flashy California vs. relentless New Jersey, as the tug of war for life-saving medical equipment went back and forth all Tuesday afternoon.
In a frantic 5-minute duel to the death, these two fired off more than 30 bids.
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The price topped $23,000 ... $24,000 ... $25,000 ... $26,000. California couldn't raise its paddle any higher, giving the victory to New Jersey at $26,900. Taxpayer money, perhaps, paid for 10-year-expired, already-taxpayer-purchased respirators worth about $100.
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The results for other auctions on GovPlanet show the price for a pallet of respirators rising with the pandemic's death toll: a $6,000 sale on January 28, $21,000 on March 10, two auctions at $26,900 on March 17.
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With the added 10 percent buyer's commission or transaction fee, New Jersey paid $29,590 for 7,680 respirators, or $3.85 apiece. Plus shipping and any Florida sales tax collected.
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GovPlanet has posted an apology: "Needed Medical Supplies Being Provided To The Government. ... GovPlanet is working in partnership with the DLA," the Defense Logistics Agency, "to identify needed medical supplies and get them in the hands of frontline workers."
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"Unfortunately, some items were missed in an earlier review of thousands of items and for that we would like to apologize. Be assured GovPlanet is doing everything it can to assist in the fight against COVID-19."
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This evening, Ritchie Bros. and GovPlanet removed all traces from their site of the N95 sales that I called to their attention. Those sales have disappeared. (As though journalists don't know how to make screenshots.)
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A spokesman for Ritchie Bros said Tuesday that the pallets of respirators sold in the past week were offered by a private seller, meaning that GovPlanet wasn't selling them from its stocks, but acting as the auctioneer for a commission.
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Here's the full statement, which Ritchie Bros. asked to be attributed to Doug Feick, the senior vice president of government services. It said the sales were an "isolated incident."
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The company twice rejected the idea that it might donate any profits or commissions made on the run-up of prices on supplies to fight the pandemic. The company repeated that it is spending company time returning items to the military, and considers that a donation.
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Respiratory ventilators were still being auctioned off today by GovPlanet. One in North Las Vegas sold for $1,175 on Tuesday. Another sold for $1,225. Their tags show they came from Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio.
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Ritchie Bros. said those ventilators sold today were designed for veterinarians and animal research professionals, so the military has not requested that they be returned. Also still for sale on the site today were N95 respirator assemblies used in construction.
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Now here's Mark Lindquist, the Afghan War veteran from Phoenix, describing how he noticed these auctions, and what they tell him about our country and a role for its citizens. Of course, he's speaking only for himself, not for the Air Force.
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Lindquist, 38, is a popular motivational speaker and sings the national anthem at sporting events. His gig income in the event industry has been killed by the coronavirus. This past week, instead of singing at Cactus League baseball games, he sheltered in place.
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"Thursday night into Friday, I was searching for N95 respirators to donate to my local Phoenix VA because I was hearing about the healthcare shortages," Lindquist said today.
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"I asked myself what N95s were made of. Are there bulk rolls of filter fabric I could buy and donate for hospitals to make their own? The mayor of New York City is asking us to make them for hospitals.
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"Bulk rolls led me to surplus. Surplus led me to military surplus. Military surplus led me govplanet.com, a site run by Ritchie Bros Auctioneers Inc., a $3 billion dollar publicly traded company.
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"I searched for N95 respirator. On Friday, I saw three live auctions of N95s with end dates of March 23, 24, and 31. It made me pretty mad that the leaders of our country were asking citizens to MAKE respirators for health care workers and we had pallets of them...
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"I get it, I’m a capitalist who wants to make more money than the next guy. But at a time of national crisis, SOMEONE at Ritchie Bros. must have known that these respirators were being auctioned.
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"As a matter of corporate responsibility, someone at Ritchie Bros. was asleep at the wheel. Or maybe the government was asleep at the wheel. But someone wasn’t paying attention. All weekend long I’m hearing of leaders talk about mask shortages.
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"Then, as of Sunday, the three auctions with end dates coming up this week, they disappeared. As of Monday morning, those pallets are now off the site, and a banner on top of the site says that supplies are being sent to the government.
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Lindquist says he is just "a feel good kid, a veteran, who serves and loves his country, who was concerned enough to ask questions."
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His questions: "How many other pallets do you have in your possession that could be sent to NYC? Did the three pallets that were on your site yesterday get shipped to hospitals for free?
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"Will the sale prices or commissions be donated to NYC hospitals or Washington state or anywhere else where there are health care workers who could have used those respirators?"
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Lindquist finishes with a hope: "What if we could spark a national movement of citizens becoming more civically engaged, asking the tough questions and giving a ---- about what happens to and in our great nation."
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Thank you to Mark Lindquist, @MarkJLindquist. A bonus: See and hear former Staff Sgt. Mark Lindquist sing The Star-Spangled Banner on Monday Night Football for more than 10 million people on ESPN. This was last Veterans Day. nbcsports.com/bayarea/video/….
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