A Revamped Strategic National Stockpile Still Can’t Match The Pandemic’s Latest Surge

Enlarge this image


Used N95 masks are collected at Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital on April 13, 2020. Hospital staff wrote their names on the masks so each could be returned after being cleaned, a strategy used to alleviate critical shortages of respirator masks.





Blake Nissen/Boston Globe via Getty Images



hide caption



toggle caption


Blake Nissen/Boston Globe via Getty Images



Shots — Health News
Coronavirus Is Surging: How Severe Is Your State’s Outbreak?



Shots — Health News
Mask Mandates Work To Slow Spread Of Coronavirus, Kansas Study Finds

The SNS has long been viewed as a bridge to help states weather calamity while the government revved up other tools in its arsenal, like the Defense Production Act, to feed additional supplies into the pipeline.

The stockpile constantly receives and sends out supplies. As of late November, its pandemic readiness supplies held some 142 million N95 respirators; 99 million surgical and non-surgical gowns and coveralls; 16 million face shields and 7 million goggles; and 153,000 ventilators, according to a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services.

While these numbers sound impressive, they fall short of what Trump administration officials had hoped to be able to set aside when the coronavirus laid bare the fragility of the SNS this past spring. The 142 million masks now on the shelves are less than half the 300 million goal that administration officials had hoped to amass by winter. (In January, the stockpile contained only 24 million N95 respirators).

«We’ve achieved much, but not all of it, says Robert Kadlec, the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response at HHS. Kadlec, who manages the SNS, says they hope to reach their goals by the end of the year.

In a perfect world, Kadlec and other HHS officials had wanted to amass a 90-day supply of critical material by the end of October. Those on the frontlines also believe that officials have vastly underestimated what a 90-day supply should look like, even before the extraordinary surge of cases this winter.

«We need billions more units of PPE to meet the need that we’re seeing across the country said Dr. Shikha Gupta, director of Get Us PPE, a grassroots organization that provides free PPE to organizations that need it.





Enlarge this image


Public health workers, doctors and nurses protest a shortage of PPE outside a hospital in the Bronx on April 17, 2020, in New York, NY.





Giles Clarke/Getty Images



hide caption



toggle caption


Giles Clarke/Getty Images





Enlarge this image


Staff and volunteers with Project CURE held a drive outside the United Center in Chicago to collect donations of PPE from the community which were then used to supply hospitals and clinics experiencing shortages on March 29, 2020.





Scott Olson/Getty Images



hide caption



toggle caption


Scott Olson/Getty Images





Enlarge this image


Ground crew at the Los Angeles International airport unload pallets of supplies of medical personal protective equipment from a China Southern Cargo plane upon its arrival on April 10, 2020.





Richard Vogel/AP



hide caption



toggle caption


Richard Vogel/AP




Ground crew at the Los Angeles International airport unload pallets of supplies of medical personal protective equipment from a China Southern Cargo plane upon its arrival on April 10, 2020.


Richard Vogel/AP

That means California now has about 40 million more N95s than the Strategic National Stockpile currently holds. «One of the things California made a priority is…that we had a strategy to have PPE for the long term in our state, he said.

California is, because of its size, an outlier. Most other states need more help — and the SNS says it has been providing it. «All they have to do is ask the federal government and we will honor that request, said Brig. Gen. David Sanford, director of the Supply Chain Advisory Group. In an interview with NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly, he said they have not turned down any requests received from the states. «We’ve had 313 since one September and we haven’t said no to any.

But there is a difference between turning down a request and meeting it fully. Robert Handfield, a professor at North Carolina State University and a supply chain expert, said that state officials he has interviewed from across the country had received some of what they requested from the stockpile but far less than they were promised. «I think several of the states are having a tough time, particularly the smaller states like Maine, New Mexico, and Nebraska, he said.

HHS’ Kadlec says some of this is simply a question of supply and demand where the supply simply cannot keep up right now. «What we try to tell them is that there is no silver bullet to magically have another billion masks here overnight, that’s just not going to happen.

Yet where the nation finds itself heading as winter approaches is dispiriting to some. Dr. Gupta of Get Us PPE said it’s unacceptable that the U.S. is still facing shortages of critical equipment.

«We’ve had so many opportunities to pay respects to our health care workers and frontline workers, not by clapping for them at 7 pm or sending them free pizza, but by giving them the protective equipment that they need, she said. «We need to do a better job of getting people what they need to walk into work, protected and confident that they can take care of themselves as well as the people around them. Anything less, she said, is «not what they signed up for and that’s not the American way.