The Massive Trump Coronavirus Supply Effort that the Media Loves to Hate

National Review ^ | 5/18/2020 | Rich Lowry

[bitt]

The administration has used deft improvisation to secure huge supplies of PPE. There is a new cardinal rule in journalism — never write anything favorable about the Trump administration’s coronavirus response, even about its successes.

It’s why the story of how the administration handled the potential ventilator crisis has gone almost entirely untold, and why its effort to secure supplies of personal protective equipment, or PPE, has been gotten largely skeptical or hostile coverage.

Any government response to a once-in-a-generation crisis is going to be subject to legitimate criticism, and there’s no question that almost every major government in the Western world, including ours, should have acted sooner. But to read the press, there is basically nothing good that the Trump administration has done over the last three months.

This is manifestly false. In a briefing for reporters last week on FEMA’s work securing PPE, FEMA administrator Peter Gaynor laid out the raw numbers: FEMA, HHS, and the private sector have shipped or are currently shipping 92.7 million N95 respirators, 133 million surgical masks, 10.5 million face shields, 42.4 million surgical gowns, and 989 million gloves.

According to Admiral John Polowczyk, head of the supply-chain task force at FEMA, we manufactured roughly 30 million N95 respirators domestically a month before the COVID-19 crisis. He says we are on a path now to ramp up to 180 million N95 respirators a month.

None of this happened by accident. At a time of unprecedented stress on the supply chain and a yawning gap between supply and demand in the market, it required considerable clever improvisation and determined hustle. This was not your average bureaucratic response. It was a partnership between the public and private sector to get supplies to the United States on an urgent basis and

[bitt]

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[rfp1234]

NR slowly inching back toward sanity?

[Zhang Fei]

For Rich Lowry to write this column must have been like pulling teeth. While not exactly a never-Trumper, the guy is definitely a Trump skeptic. He agrees with most of what Trump does and has done, but is generally very sparing with praise for Trump. For the Democrats to goad Lowry into writing this column is an indication that they have really jumped the shark.

[MuttTheHoople]

Nevertrumper Review must really be hurting for people to sign up for their cruises.

[Nothingburger]

That’s sort of what I thought.

All I have to say to the Never Trumpers is: Folka love a winner. And Trump is not only that but he shows others how to win as well.

[Dave W]

Rich Lowry was always more reasonable than the vile David French and the vile and unfunny Jonah Goldberg. But those two were absolutely unacceptable to me and while they no longer write for National Review, the damage has been done.

Rich has said the Anyone But Trump issue during the primaries was a mistake.

[jmacusa]

I gave up reading National Review years ago. Glad I did.

[gogeo]

There is a new cardinal rule in journalism — never write anything favorable about the Trump administration’s coronavirus response, even about its successes.

I thought that was a NR policy. What happened?

[gogeo]

Rich has said the Anyone But Trump issue during the primaries was a mistake.

Do you suppose he bumped into Captain Obvious in line at Starbucks?

[mewzilla]

This is facinating.

Trump really makes an awesome CEO of America, Inc.

Folks should read and share.