[Written March 2020] After President Trump urged states to fend for themselves in an ever-worsening need for medical supplies across the country, like personal protective equipment for healthcare workers and ventilators for COVID-19 patients with life-and-death breathing difficulties, the Trump Administration doubled-back on its initial advice and enacted the Defense Production Act in order to seize control of medical equipment supply and demand.
Failing to deliver supplies that match states' needs, many states attempted to arrange shipments of supplies individually, which led to concerns over equitable distribution and price-bidding over essential items. FEMA, which has now taken over such shipments, has done so under the implication that locations that are "COVID hotspots" aka locations with higher infection rates, and of greater need, will be prioritized on the distribution front. This has *not* been the case. https://tinyurl.com/Medical-Supplies-Needed
"Advisers to Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, have surprised FEMA officials in recent weeks to deploy supplies to communities after the area's representatives got through to Mr. Trump, even if the state had not yet gone through the formal process to secure supplies."
This is a clear case of insider-trading, over explicitly public resources. Large shipments of masks for New Jersey and Massachusetts have been seized in the past couple weeks and added to the Strategic National Stockpile, and yet the delayed federal delivery of supplies to New Jersey and Massachusetts have met less than 20% of their needs. Meanwhile, Florida has received a disproportionate number of masks in comparison. https://tinyurl.com/FEMA-Distribution
In the same vein, AdvaMed, the largest medical device trade association in the world, wrote to FEMA in late March outlining the many supplies already available and the many more *being rapidly produced.* The letter urges the Trump Administration to decide "how to allocate these products in the most effective way" as it is extremely difficult for AdvaMed to distribute masks in order of need if they do not have the official statistics or right-of-way. https://tinyurl.com/AdvaMed-Letter
Furthermore, in a new iteration of lack of transparency by the Trump Administration, an alarming number of masks have disappeared from the National Reserve over the past few months with no clear record as to where they went. Like Kushner's deal, there is no public record of how, precisely, these resources have been distributed.
Kushner's own comments on the Reserve were less than democratic in its outlook, "And the notion of the federal stockpile - it was supposed to be our stockpile. It's not supposed to be state stockpiles that they then use."
Last week, Congressman Gardner wrote a letter to Inspector General Grimm on the dwindling state of the stockpile looking for answers. https://tinyurl.com/Senator-Gardner-Inquiry
It is unethical and irresponsible to abandon transparent processes that hold states and the federal government accountable for proper allocation of essential resources, and further to shirk the very reason for a National Reserve's existence. Even if one would like to lay aside every moral infraction these actions stink of, consider the most basic financial agreement between the American people and it's governing bodies—taxes. If the American people's vast investment in the system is not enough to give us democratic access to an emergency stockpile erected strictly for the purpose of national emergency (let alone sick leave, worker protections, and adequate unemployment) one must thereby ask what exactly our investments amount to.