updated 5-12-2020
FEMA seized 400,000 N95 masks from Delaware medical supplier; now he’s out millions of dollars
George Gianforcaro, owner of the small, Newark, Delaware-based Indutex USA, said the Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA] did not pay him when it took possession of two imported shipments of masks bound for customers across the United States.
Those customers included Delaware nursing facilities and the state of Michigan.
…amid FEMA denials, Gianforcaro shared a written order FEMA sent to his company. The document directed Indutex to sell to the federal government “all filtering facepiece respirators, including the N95 respirators contained within shipment number 8994645378 that arrived at JFK Airport” on April 6.
That early April shipment of 100,000 N95 masks was followed by the arrival April 19 of 300,000 additional ones, which also were seized, Gianforcaro said. [Gianforcaro has never been paid]
Citing Defense Production Act authority, the FEMA document further ordered Indutex to “set aside” all N95 or surgical masks it may come to possess during the federal emergency for a potential sale to FEMA.
Gaynor’s signature is written along the bottom of the document.
[Pete Gaynor, head of FEMA]
Gianforcaro said FEMA sent the written order [to him] only after he got a lawyer: “I kept screaming about it and I got a lawyer involved,” he said. “Then, that’s when I got the letter from them.”
“Let’s not forget I paid $4 million for this product on March 18,” Gianforcaro said, referring to the million-mask order. “This is getting very, very expensive. I don’t have any money and I don’t have any product and there’s people that are asking for it.”
Separately, the Chicago Sun Times reported last week that Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker was keeping secret, details of a plan to obtain millions of masks and gloves from China out of fear of a federal seizure.
Only Trump’s Republicans would participate in this deliberate obvious interference and lying
Like in the agency’s [false] statement to The Delaware News Journal as well as comments to Senate Democrats, Gaynor said FEMA is not seizing masks or other equipment from governments “or any commercial entity lawfully engaged in the PPE distribution.”
www.USAtoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/04/21/indutex-usa-says-fema-seized-n-95-respirators-national-stockpile/2996256001/
April 21, 202012:42 PM ET
tRump fighting against testing even in Republican states
Maryland Buys 500,000 Test Kits From South Korea, Drawing Criticism From Trump
Maryland’s Republican Gov. Larry Hogan is defending his decision to secure half a million coronavirus test kits from South Korea
For days, Hogan, a Republican, has expressed frustration with the Trump administration over his state’s struggle to obtain more testing equipment.
“If there were an easier way, we certainly would have taken it,” Hogan said Tuesday in an interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. “The president said the governors are on their own and they should focus on getting their own tests, and that’s exactly what we did.”
The governor called it a “confidential” project. [again, secrecy to keep the Fed’s hands off]
www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/21/839919655/maryland-gets-500-000-test-kits-from-south-korea-drawing-criticism-from-trump
5-12-2020
Trump’s incompetent handling of the Covid-19 pandemic is also crippling the global response to the crisisWhen global crises hit, American leadership is essential. American leadership is far from perfect, but it is necessary to tackle threats of a global magnitude.
A successful global effort to defeat the pandemic needs a compassionate American response. Instead, Trump is making it harder for the world to address the crisis.While the US would normally be leading calls for assistance to developing countries to help them deal with the pandemic, the Trump administration is [interfering]. In past crises, the US would gather allies and partners to develop common solutions; this time, the Trump administration blocked the G20 from taking action.
When the UN secretary general pushed for a global ceasefire during the pandemic – which numerous groups involved in armed conflicts indicated they would support – the US held up efforts because of squabbling with China over language referring to the WHO.On 4 May, leaders from around the world convened to raise funds to find a vaccine and treatments and clear the way for mass production and distribution. But the US was missing in action – not only did Trump fail to attend, but the US didn’t even send an official or any funds.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/12/trump-is-making-america-an-obstacle-in-the-global-fight-against-covid-19
4/9/2020
Feds seize coronavirus test kit materials bound for Bellingham hospital and Northwest
A delivery of test kit materials to Bellingham’s St. Joseph hospital and other Peace Health medical facilities in the Northwest to run COVID-19 tests were seized and diverted by the federal government.
Again, only Trump would dictate this deliberate obvious interference and lying
A response statement from the Federal Emergency Response Management Agency emailed to The Bellingham Herald said, “Reports of FEMA commandeering or re-routing such supplies are false.”
The Los Angeles Times first reported about the federal government quietly seizing orders for medical supplies made by hospitals in a story Tuesday, April 7. Those seizures came despite President Trump directing states and hospitals to acquire what supplies they could to deal with the coronavirus pandemic.
According to the Los Angeles Times story, hospital and clinic officials in seven states described similar seizures in the past week, though the Federal Emergency Management Agency has not publicly announced the seizures.
FEMA and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection are working to prevent domestic brokers, distributors and others from sending critical medical resources overseas, according to the FEMA statement. [but, tRump has sent our federal stockpiles to other countries including China!]
www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/feds-seize-coronavirus-test-kit-materials-bound-for-bellingham-hospital-and-northwest/ar-BB12ovoC
Apr 4, 2020, 2:10pm EDT
How the Trump administration has stood in the way of PPE distribution
States are competing for supplies, and manufacturers aren’t sure who to ship PPE to first.
The Trump administration’s refusal to coordinate PPE distribution has forced everyone to compete with one another for supplies.
Since March, US hospitals have faced shortages as the disease became widespread: Health care workers say they’re rapidly running out of masks, gowns, gloves, ventilators, and other protective supplies to treat Covid-19 patients, some of which are necessary to protect doctors, nurses, and providers on the front lines.
Some workers are wearing bandanas and scarves as an alternative to masks, fashioning gowns from trash bags, and rationing or even reusing medical equipment. The federal emergency stockpile is nearly depleted and “the supply chain for PPE worldwide has broken down,” a DHS official told the Washington Post. The situation is dire, and states, especially those with increasing numbers of coronavirus cases, are desperate for supplies. However, the federal distribution of supplies has occurred unevenly and several actions taken by the Trump administration will likely make it harder for hospitals to get the PPE and ventilators they need in the weeks to come.
“We the states are trying to actively get every piece of PPE that we can. We’re bidding against one another, and in some cases, the federal government is taking priority,” Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said on CNN’s State of the Union. [because of tRump’s refusal, the fed should not be interfering, competing for anything!]
A number of governors — including Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker — have said they’ve seen orders for masks and other needed equipment canceled because the federal government outbid them. This has led to some finding creative ways to disguise their orders to mask them from the Trump administration.
Baker’s administration worked with Patriots owner Robert Kraft, the Chinese UN ambassador, and other Chinese officials to secure a shipment of 1.2 million face masks to the state. The governor told reporters Thursday he worked with the Kraft family to create a “‘private humanitarian mission’ to keep the Feds from finding out” about the mask shipment and seizing it, according to reporter Adam Gaffin — and the masks came to the state on the Patriots’ team plane.
Critical medical supplies are being produced in the US, but instructions as to who will receive the products haven’t been made clear to suppliers — a situation that has reportedly left badly needed supplies sitting in warehouses.
www.vox.com/2020/4/4/21208122/ppe-distribution-trump-administration-states
Apr. 19, 2020
The White House Has Erected a Blockade Stopping States and Hospitals From Getting Coronavirus PPE
Whenever you start to think that the federal government under Donald Trump has hit a moral bottom, it finds a new way to shock and horrify.
Over the last few weeks, it has started to appear as though, in addition to abandoning the states to their own devices in a time of national emergency, the federal government has effectively erected a blockade — like that which the Union used to choke off the supply chains of the Confederacy during the Civil War — to prevent delivery of critical medical equipment to states desperately in need. At the very least, federal authorities have made governors and hospital executives all around the country operate in fear that shipments of necessary supplies will be seized along the way. In a time of pandemic, having evacuated federal responsibility, the White House is functionally waging a war against state leadership and the initiative of local hospitals to secure what they need to provide sufficient treatment.
Yesterday, a letter published by the New England Journal of Medicine highlighted the extraordinary measures that had to be taken to secure the delivery into Massachusetts of equipment that had been bought and paid for. The NEJM, which featured the letter in its COVID-19 Notes series, is far from a platform of partisan alarm or hysteria — it is among the most sober and high-minded professional journals in the country. It’s worth reading the correspondence, written by an executive running a small health system, at some length:
Our supply-chain group has worked around the clock to secure gowns, gloves, face masks, goggles, face shields, and N95 respirators. These employees have adapted to a new normal, exploring every lead, no matter how unusual. Deals, some bizarre and convoluted, and many involving large sums of money, have dissolved at the last minute when we were outbid or outmuscled, sometimes by the federal government. Then we got lucky, but getting the supplies was not easy.
Last month, 3 million masks ordered by the state of Massachusetts were seized by the federal government. Last week, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that the governor of Illinois, J.B. Pritzker, was arranging secret chartered flights of supplies as a way of outmaneuvering federal interference. “The governor has clearly outlined the challenges this administration has faced as we’ve worked around the clock to purchase PPE for our health-care workers and first responders,” a spokesperson for the governor told the paper. “The supply chain has been likened to the Wild West, and once you have purchased supplies, ensuring they get to the state is another Herculean feat,” he continued. “These flights are carrying millions of masks and gloves our workers need. They’re scheduled to land in Illinois in the coming weeks and the state is working to ensure these much-needed supplies are protected and ready for distribution around the state.” A source “knowledgeable about the flights” told the paper that the governor didn’t want to be more open about the shipments “because we’ve heard reports of Trump trying to take PPE in China and when it gets to the United States.”
The president, often thought to harbor authoritarian impulses, will invariably choose to unburden himself of responsibility even when seizing it would offer remarkable new powers — and itself a moral outrage demonstrating incredible political sadism, given that states lack the resources of the federal government to pay for this stuff. That’s in part because, in many cases, states are legally barred from deficit spending, which means in times of crisis, especially those producing huge budget shortfalls through collapsing tax revenue, they are functionally unable to respond at all. In such situations, the federal government is designed to serve as a backstop, but over and over again throughout this crisis, the White House has said states will get little to no help — that they are entirely on their own. (The federal medical stockpile isn’t meant for the states, as Jared Kushner has said, as though the country is anything more than its states.)
On top of that outrage, the Feds are bidding against states who are trying to buy their own supplies
The federal government is choking supply chains to states like it chokes supply chains to Iran and North Korea.
…the purpose seems completely unclear – indeed the policy is inexplicable and indefensible. Which may be one reason why no explanation has been given.
We don’t know where these supplies are going. We don’t know on what grounds they are being seized … it is hard to come to any conclusion other than that this is simply mafia government, exerting control for the sake of control, not in spite of but because of the crisis-led demand, and squeezing the American people, as they die in hospital beds and attend — with inadequate protection — to the sick and scared.
nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/hospitals-face-a-white-house-blockade-for-coronavirus-ppe.html
the magazine has won more National Magazine Awards than any other publication, including the 2013 award for Magazine of the Year.