
The U.S. Is Almost Out of Its Stockpile of N95 Masks, Face Shields, and Gowns - pmoriarty
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/jgezvb/the-us-is-almost-out-of-its-stockpile-of-n95s-masks-face-shields-and-gowns
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csense
The government's actually seizing this kind of stuff from hospitals, and won't
tell anyone what they're doing with it [1].

Some hospitals are reporting protective gear from stockpiles that is
completely unusable: masks 10 years past its expiration date, masks for
children, masks that are rotting [2].

My guess: The government had enough masks / PPE on paper, but never actually
checked it was usable. No one intended this to happen, it just sort of fell
through the cracks, and all the paperwork said everything was OK. So now the
physical masks are needed everywhere, they can't get by anymore on paperwork
that doesn't reflect reality.

Thus, they're forced to seize supplies from civilian hospitals so they'll have
enough if there's an outbreak in the essential parts of government: soldiers,
intelligence, Congress, etc.

And the government decided not to tell anyone they're doing this, because it's
a super bad look for them. Because (a), they screwed up really bad (the woman
being interviewed in the Youtube link is an HHS inspector general, AFAIK her
whole department's one and only job is specifically to catch stuff like this,
I don't know, in January when we thought there might be a new disease
emerging, or years ago when there was still plenty of time to get new masks
slowly over time through a normally functioning supply chain.)

And (b), there's some ethical issues with letting civilian medical workers
sicken and die today, so "the people who matter" in government will be
protected just in case they start to get sick tomorrow. This seems like the
kind of thorny ethical decision that should be made through the public
political process, not some secret bureaucratic decisions.

Anyone know how to file an FOIA request to try to force the bureaucrats to
tell us what's happening to seized masks?

[1]
[https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-04-07/hospitals-...](https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-04-07/hospitals-
washington-seize-coronavirus-supplies)

[2] [https://youtu.be/A4YZxctxh8w?t=159](https://youtu.be/A4YZxctxh8w?t=159)

