So just to elaborate a bit on this, there are two separate, somewhat contradictory federal initiatives happening on medical supplies right now. (1/?)
prospect.org/coronavirus/un…
prospect.org/coronavirus/un…
FEMA is just UPS - the very shipping clerk Trump said the USG was not - freeing up delivery of supplies to distributors.
The Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) is the one doing the bidding against the states. They have the contract relationships to buy equipment.
The Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) is the one doing the bidding against the states. They have the contract relationships to buy equipment.
SNS then delivers to the very states they're bidding up the price against.
But what they could be doing reflects a missed opportunity.
But what they could be doing reflects a missed opportunity.
There was this "last mile" initiative that would make SNS one-stop shopping for securing supplies AND distributing it to those who need them, bypassing the state channel. It was worked on for over a year. phe.gov/Preparedness/p…
The supplies would be moved through hotels and big-box stores in cities directly to the end user. It was designed for a bioterror attack but you could see it working for this pandemic.
I heard from a source with knowledge of this. The assistant secretary for preparedness and response (ASPR) at Health and Human Services worked on this for a year. It "went nowhere."
So we could have had a coherent national distribution network for medical supplies, not the chaos we see now. But there was no follow-through on it. And here we are. prospect.org/coronavirus/un…
