Masks, surgical gowns, testing supplies on FDA shortage list (1 Viewer)

[Rogue Valley]

Masks, surgical gowns, testing supplies on FDA shortage list

8/14/20
Surgical gowns, gloves, masks, certain ventilators and various testing supplies needed to respond to the coronavirus pandemic are on the FDA's first-ever list of medical devices in shortage. The shortage list was released hours after President Donald Trump touted the progress his administration has made in securing critical protective gear and other supplies. "We have tripled the number of N95 masks on hand to over 40 million, tripled the number of gowns to over 15 million and quadrupled the number of ventilators to 69,000," Trump said at a briefing on Friday, referring to the country's Strategic National Stockpile. But health care workers at smaller and poorer hospitals and medical systems say they are still struggling to obtain protective gear, personnel and resources to fight the coronavirus. Trump has also repeatedly described the United States' testing system as the best in the world. Premier, a group purchasing organization, praised the FDA for publishing the list, saying the action “is a positive development that will enable greater resiliency in the healthcare supply chain.” FDA laid out reporting requirements for device manufacturers in May. The agency expects industry to alert the agency at least six months in advance of discontinuance or interruption of critical devices. The FDA previously has said it will work with Congress to expand device manufacturer shortage disclosure requirements.

Why are we still short of PPE products 5 months after Trump said he would handle it?

Admiral Brett Giroir, who Trump appointed five months ago to oversee coronavirus testing, said the the government has done all it can to increase testing.

This is unsatisfactory. The US should be doing ~4 million tests a day or ~30 million tests a week. We are nowhere near that.

Giroir, who was working on vaccine development projects at Texas A&M, was fired from that job. The local newspaper reported his annual performance evaluation said he was “more interested in promoting himself” than the health science center where he worked.

 

[Rexedgar]

Masks, surgical gowns, testing supplies on FDA shortage list

Why are we still short of PPE products 5 months after Trump said he would handle it?

Admiral Brett Giroir, who Trump appointed five months ago to oversee coronavirus testing, said the the government has done all it can to increase testing.

This is unsatisfactory. The US should be doing ~4 million tests a day or ~30 million tests a week. We are nowhere near that.

Giroir, who was working on vaccine development projects at Texas A&M, was fired from that job. The local newspaper reported his annual performance evaluation said he was “more interested in promoting himself” than the health science center where he worked.

Gotta be fake news!

This excerpt is from yesterday’s press briefing:
In April, I directed 3M to increase its manufacturing of N95 masks. By May, they had increased production by over a million masks a day. Think of that: They increased production of masks by over one million a day. 3M is now manufacturing an additional 39 million masks a month. We also worked with Honeywell to open factories in Arizona and Rhode Island. They’re now producing over 20 million masks a month.

By the end of the year, domestic U.S. manufacturing will have produced over 1 billion N95 respirators, and all of them are made right here in the USA. That’s a big difference from the past.

Overall, we’ve increased N95 mask production by 400 million masks a year. Now, the media might say, “Why not 500? Why not 600?” Nobody has seen numbers like this ever.

We delivered more than $75 million in support to Puritan Medical in Maine. I was up there. I was — as you remember, we had a tremendous visit and tremendous throngs of people along the roads on the way to Puritan Medical. Puritan has a doubled their production of testing swabs from 20 million to 40 million per month. They’re doing a fantastic job, and so is Maine.

I’ve also used the DPA to fight price gouging and hoarding. My administration located and seized over half a million pieces of hoarded personal protective equipment, including 299,000 pairs of medical-grade gloves, 192,000 N95 respirators, and 130,000 surgical masks. That’s hoarding.

My administration’s decisive actions have yielded truly incredible results. People have done an incredible job. We’ve replenished the Strategic National Stockpile that was very badly depleted when we took office and totally neglected in the last administration.


Puritan Medical? Wasn’t that the place that had to trash a day’s worth of production because someone wore no mask?

 

[bluesmoke]

From the beginning, the DPA should have been used to produce mask and sent to all Americans, period. Whether directly to residence and/or to health center and school outlets for pickup/distribution. Period.