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Catching up on all the crazy stuff my colleagues have been digging into this week. Like this dissection of the way the White House is steering huge no-bid contracts for COVID-19 response outside the normal procurement channels and won't explain why or how: propublica.org/article/the-wh…
More ER staffing companies owned by private equity billionaires are cutting pay for healthcare workers and now want bailout money separate and apart from the money flowing to hospitals, by @iarnsdorf propublica.org/article/medica…
The city of Laredo was so desperate for COVID-19 test kits that it jumped on an offer to get in on a shipment from China -- with the help of @RepCuellar -- that turned out to not be authorized by the FDA and were then seized by DHS, by @JinATX
propublica.org/article/he-spe…
@RepCuellar @JinATX (Not that FDA authorization means what it used to mean, as @CarolineYLChen and I reported yesterday: propublica.org/article/corona… )
Thin staffing and PPE rationing are weakening the responsiveness of NYC hospitals overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients, resulting in more deaths being discovered in the morning when more nurses clock in: propublica.org/article/ration…
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More from @lydiadepillis see all

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Lydia DePillis
@lydiadepillis
New from me and @lisalsong: Even as they compete with each other for essential medical equipment, governments haven’t been very forthcoming about what they’re paying and to whom. We got a partial price list from New York that provides a small window into the madness. 1/
@lisalsong According to a budget office spokesman, the state paid as much as $248,881 for a portable x-ray machine, 3x even the fanciest version in normal times. $7.50 for face masks, 15x the usual price. And $2,795 for infusion pumps, which usually cost less than half that. 2/
@lisalsong (The Office of General Services, which is buying stuff for coronavirus response, declined to provide further details, saying that the time to look back on the cost of fighting COVID-19 will be “when this pandemic is over.” We've filed a FOIL request to make sure.) 3/
Read 5 tweets
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lydia.depillis@gmail.com
@lydiadepillis
In presser, Trump says he's holding 10,000 ventilators back -- "We have to hold them back because the surge is coming." (This is part of the thinking in stockpile management--reclaiming equipment is much harder than giving it out)
Dr. Birx says there have so far been enough ventilators: "No one has been turned away. No one who needs ventilation has not received ventilation."
And knocks down vaccine hype: "There's no magic bullet. There's no magic vaccine or therapy. It's just behaviors."
Pence says they've delivered 400 ventilators to Michigan, 300 to NJ, 150 to Louisiana, 50 to Connecticut, 450 to Illinois, and 4,400 to NY. (The national stockpile started out with about 16,000)
Read 15 tweets
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Lydia DePillis
@lydiadepillis
NEW: As COVID-19 spreads, we’re learning more about the missteps early in the outbreak that could’ve kept it under wraps. One key hindrance: a long, technical document called the EMERGENCY USE AUTHORIZATION, issued by the Food and Drug Administration on Feb. 4. 1/x
EUAs are supposed to short-circuit the FDA’s long, arduous approval process in the event of a fast-moving outbreak. But this was no typical outbreak, and the requirements were still restrictive enough to keep both public and private labs from rolling tests out quickly. 2/
For example, the CDC has to retest all positive/inconclusive cases--so far more than 1,000. That has slowed down reporting and taken up valuable testing bandwidth. Also, the EUA has tight rules for private labs that want to start testing on their own. 3/
Read 8 tweets

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