PPE Supply Chain Needs Data Transparency and Stress Testing

Excerpt

During the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the USA is experiencing a severe shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) that threatens care delivery and the safety of medical staff.¹ In a normal year, the USA spends approximately $5 billion on PPE, with imports constituting more than 20% of the supply.² Specialized PPE is particularly dependent on imports. For example, an estimated 90% of N95 masks are imported, mostly from China. This heavy dependence on foreign-made specialized PPE makes its supply chain vulnerable and exposes health care workers and patients to substantial risks. When countries, states, cities, hospitals, and clinicians are all competing for the same limited international supply during the pandemic, the risks are escalated to crises that challenge public health and national health security. By some estimate, clinicians account for nearly 20% of the COVID-19-infected cases in the USA.³ This is in contrast to countries such as Singapore and South Korea where clinicians have been rarely infected due to sufficient domestically supplied PPE. …