Posted on 03/23/2020 2:33:28 PM PDT by bitt
The national shortage of N95 respirator masks can be traced back to 2009 after the H1N1 swine flu pandemic, when the Obama administration was advised to replenish a national stockpile but did not, according to reports from Bloomberg News and the Los Angeles Times.
The Trump administration is scrambling to replenish a stockpile of protective medical gear for healthcare workers and patients as the coronavirus sweeps across the nation. N95 respirator masks are one of the most needed medical supplies amid the outbreak.
The George W. Bush administration published the National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza plan in 2005, which called on the federal government to distribute medical supplies from the Strategic National Stockpile governed by the Health and Human Services Department in the event of an outbreak.
In 2009, the H1N1 outbreak hit the United States, leading to 274,304 hospitalizations, 12,469 deaths, and a depletion of N95 respirator masks.
A federally backed task force and a safety equipment organization both recommended to the Obama administration that the stockpile be replenished with the 100 million masks used after the H1N1 outbreak.
Charles Johnson, president of the International Safety Equipment Association, said that advice was never heeded.
“Our association is unaware of any major effort to restore the stockpile to cover that drawdown,” he said.
HHS Secretary Alex Azar reported last month that only 12 million N95 masks were available in the stockpile, “a tiny fraction of the 3.5 billion masks one of Azar’s deputies later testified the nation’s healthcare system would need,” the Los Angeles Times noted.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
P
Why am I not surprised.
The only surprise is that this is the LA Times.
Hers a name. Nicole Lurie.
She was Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response under Obama.
” the Obama administration was advised to replenish a national stockpile but did not, according to reports from Bloomberg News and the Los Angeles Times.”
So Obama didn’t, and we haven’t done so in the last three years either? If all this is true, where was CDC on this, or Dr Fauci?
Who is the person who had the responsibility of overseeing this stockpile?
Figures... dumbass O-hole again.
“She was Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response under Obama.”
Who has held her job for the last three years, since Obama left? Is that person at all responsible for not fixing any mess that Obama left us with? I don’t know, but I’m asking.
We want the names of those in charge who didn’t do their jobs but did ask for and received more money every year, and they did manage to cash their paychecks.
Shocked!
In Trump’s fourth year, that is on both his and Barry’s admins.
Andrew Cuomo thinks N-95 masks should still cost 85 cents.
He forgets to mention those were the masks made in ChiCom slave wage sweat shops.
If the fedgov ordered masks to cost no more than a buck, we’d have no masks at all. The ChiCom sweatshops are not an option.
This is why Trump talks about nationalization = Venezuela.
You can order that a loaf of bread costs 25 cents, but then, you’ll have no bread.
there’s no telling how much more stuff barrack hussein bin soetoro has f’d up
I have to assume that our ‘best and brightest’ were waiting for a REASON to resupply our strategic stockpile.
Now we have one.
All I can say is that I’m DAMN GLAD that I didn’t take that approach to prepping for my family.
Reduce the burden on the Obamacare system don't cha know.
e want the names of those in charge who didn’t do their jobs but did ask for and received more money every year, and they did manage to cash their paychecks.“
Trump needs to fire some people
I betcha I know where the money went. No masks but oodles of condoms.
there’s no telling how much more stuff barrack hussein bin soetoro has f’d up“
True, but he left office three years ago
“has held her job for the last three years, since Obama left? Is that person at all responsible for not fixing any mess that Obama left us with? I don’t know, but I’m asking.”
I think to some degree, yes.
There was a Bush person prior to Lurie.
I know that the Public Heakth Emergency community during the Obama years began using a vendor management system approach as opposed to physical stockpiling.
That won’t work well in a world wide large pandemic for things that are manufactured largely overseas (e.g. China).
I’m guessing they used this after the 2009 H1N1 epidemic depleted stores, but can’t know for sure.
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