Posted on 03/31/2020 9:17:59 PM PDT by bitt
The stockpile's 100 million supply of N95 respirator masks was never fully replenished after 2009 swine flu pandemic, experts say.
The Strategic National Stockpile, America’s giant medical storage closet for a terrorist or biological crisis, once boasted more than 100 million respirator masks to protect doctors, nurses and other frontline health care workers in case of a contagion.
But when the COVID-19 pandemic started a few months ago, the supply had dwindled down to just 12 million fitted masks, known as N95 respirators, and 30 million surgical masks, a supply deemed to be less than 2 percent of what the nation would need for full-blown pandemic.
The tale of how such a critical supply lapsed, leading the Trump administration to scramble for 500 million new masks in the midst of pandemic, is one of government neglect and competing priorities that began in 2009.
That’s when the Obama administration drew down nearly 97 million of the masks to deal with the H1N1 swine flu pandemic, effectively protecting frontline medical workers from a virus that infected more than 60 million Americans.
But when it was over, the administration decided not to fully restock the respirators, choosing to spend its $600 million annual budget for the stockpile on other priorities such as key drugs and vaccines to deal with smallpox, anthrax and the like, experts said.
There is really “no answer why the supplies were not replenished because the N95 masks are invaluable tools for preparedness and it was important that they be restocked,” said Charles Johnson, President of International Safety Equipment Association, whose members make supplies for the stockpile.
In the end, Johnson said, the Obama administration chose to use its “limited funds” in other ways and “made the best choices at the time even though his association
(Excerpt) Read more at justthenews.com ...
I have done plenty of inventory calculations in my 62 years of doing accounting & bookkeeping.
IF Obama did deplete the respirator inventory in 2009, WHERE did they go? IF those units went to individual states or cities, then those locations that received them in 2009 should still have them on hand....shouldn’t they?
WHERE did they disappear to?
Obama never had the overall health of the USA in his mind, but how does a solid asset like these expensive ventilators just disappear???
Do they have a short useful life?
Can they NOT be used a 2nd or 3rd or more times?
Can they NOT be sterilized before use by another patient?
Does anyone here know the answer?
Please PM me with info.
I voted for him even though I suspected he was a liberal NYC liberal ruuning as a Repub ala Bloomberg.
He has proved me wrong and exceeded all of my expectations.
We are truly blessed to have him as POTUS right now.
That said, it is beneath his administration to blame odungo.
That's what dems do.
Yes, soetoro drained the national stockpile and didn't replenish it.
Republicans controlled Congress for the first 2 years of the administration.
It should have been fixed.
Harry Truman had a sign on his desk.
"The buck stops here".
One more point.
FEMA, the feds, are the last line of defense in a disaster, not the first.
It appears, as in NO during Katrina, local and state governments were woefully unprepared for this.
Money that should have been used to purchase PPE, ventilators and other supplies was used for "other" things, such as lbgtqrst "issues", needle exchanges, poop patrols, riverboat gambling etc.
All of these governors, mayors and other ankle biters would do well to look in the mirror than to blame My President.
. especially when the dems are in the wrong. Trump, unlike prior Republicans, doesn’t take that lying down.Yes, soetoro drained the national stockpile and didn't replenish it.
Republicans controlled Congress for the first 2 years of the administration. It should have been fixed.
Sure - but it woulda helped a lot if the Democrats hadn’t continued trying to steal the ’16 election all the way to 2020.Do the Democrats get a pass for doing absolutely nothing productive - and a lot simply obstructive - in all that time? All very well to say that the Democrats were in the minority in ’17 and ’18 - but what did they try to do that was worth anything?
. . . and as fellow travelers of the journalism cartel, Democrats are never truly powerless.
Dems and the msm are scum.
Doesn't change the facts that FEMA should have been better prepared.
The only places this story is being repeated are a bunch of blogs. Who in the “mainstream media” has carried this?
I cannot find anything specific to ventilators on any site that I'd call "mainstream" like TownHall.
Not answer, but this says fed stockpiles haven’t been replenished since 2010:
Bump
Only ONE of the Obumbler's many, many mistakes during his 8 years pi$$ poor leadership!
FEMA certainly should have submitted a germane budget request, no question.Did they? Surprising that they wouldn’t do that.
Someone in FEMA should have known that equipment was depleted and needed replaced.
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