Much-needed supplies for responding to COVID-19 remain limited

与众不同countriessuch as South Korea, New Zealand, or Germany, the US has not controlled the spread of COVID-19 in a coordinated fashion, and the nation is indangerof a second surge of cases. Someexperts已经看到第二次激增的指标。例如，Covid-19 19sharplyin several states after Memorial Day, and the percentage of COVID-19 tests that are positive is上升在该国某些地区。悲惨地，超过113,000名美国人有死了from COVID-19, about a quarter of all deaths reported globally. This week’s Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committeehearing研究了我们准备的关键方面，以期为Covid-19的第二次激增。

美国的医疗用品可用性

From mid March through April, when COVID-19 was first on the上升整个国家——尤其是苏尔ging in New York City and New Jersey – there were shortages of almost每一个COVID-19-related medical supply imaginable. N95 respirator masks. Face shields. Cleaning supplies.Drugsfor patients on ventilators.拭子for COVID-19 tests. States scrambled to obtain much-needed supplies, sometimesforcedinto bidding against one another. This was all due to thecombinedimpactsof the sudden worldwide surge in demand for these goods, deficiencies with US caches of emergency supplies, domestic distribution issues, and a lack of timely, decisive, evidence-based leadership in the White House.

The US should have been ready for the intensified needs brought on by the pandemic, with the health security communityrecommending多年来，更多的资源专门用于传染病的准备和反应，但不幸的是，该国被扎根。白宫Covid-19供应链工作队自己的供应链本身估计美国个人保护设备（PPE）需求和可用性 - 公开，因为参议员玛姬·哈桑（D，NH）pressedthe Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to release them during the hearing –展示US supplies of N95 respirator masks, surgical masks, gowns, and nitrile gloves not meeting demand in March, April, and May. Moving forward, the Task Forceprojects从7月开始，N95呼吸器口罩，外科手术口罩和礼服，并从本月开始硝化手套，供应将满足对医院的需求，疗养院，急救人员以及看门人，实验室和惩教人员等长期护理机构的需求。

But America’s PPE supply is in flux, and there are clearly inadequacies. For example, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)说it needs a six-month supply of PPE to handle a second surge of COVID-19. At the height of the initial surge, the VA’s 170 medical centers wereusing每天250,000 N95呼吸器掩盖。现在，只有VA有about a 30-day supply of PPE, and as of June 5th, the VA had不是received any of the 7.5 million “generic masks,” nor any of the 3.4 million “isolation gowns,” it had requested from FEMA’s Strategic National Stockpile program back in mid-April.

Strategic National Stockpile

The Strategic National Stockpile was intended to be America’s fallback plan. Through April 1st (the Administration改变了the wording on April 2nd), the stockpile wasdefinedas

“…the nation’s largest supply of life-saving pharmaceuticals and medical supplies for use in a public health emergency severe enough to cause local supplies to run out. When state, local, tribal, and territorial responders request federal assistance to support their response efforts, the stockpile ensures that the right medicines and supplies get to those who need them most during an emergency. Organized for scalable response to a variety of public health threats, the repository contains enough supplies to respond to multiple large-scale emergencies simultaneously.”

The stockpile was initiallylaunched1999年，由卫生与公共服务部（HHS）疾病控制与预防中心管理。2018年，库存的责任shiftedto the HHS assistant secretary for preparedness and response (ASPR). In March, responsibility for the stockpile shifted再次，这次是FEMA。

面对冠状病毒大流行，库存没有太大的弹性。政府官员估计美国会require35亿n95 n95呼吸器面具，以进行严重爆发。有仅有的12 million unexpired N95 respirator masks in the stockpile in February. In early March, the stockpile包含只有16,600个呼吸机，4月3日，联邦政府只有9,800个呼吸机。不太可能补充库存，因为可用的PPE通常是immediatelyput to use in COVID-19 hot spots or delivered to medical centers, and it is difficult to gain insight into the current inventory of the stockpile. For instance, after not receiving a response to their Freedom of Information Act request, ProPublica提起a lawsuit against the Administration to get medical stockpile records.

一组九个前总统科学顾问warned美国需要在9月1日之前建立库存，以便为秋季可能的Covid-19复兴做好准备，并且国家和地方供应库存也需要库存。他们的建议围绕围绕生产基本的医疗用品，储存用品以及改善供应链和分配的协调的资金增加。

贯穿大流行

在此期间hearing后海军上将约翰·波洛奇克（John Polowczyk）担任参谋长联合负责人的物流副总监，作证说，美国正在增加至少一些关键的医疗用品的国内生产。Polowczyk列举了当前生产1.8亿N95呼吸器面罩的能力，他期望在秋季生产足够数量的可重复使用的礼服，至少是一些氮气手套制造业的起点（与以前的国内能力基本上零相比）并启动发射一些呼吸机药物的过程。

Despite these signs of progress, at the moment, the US does not appear ready for another surge of coronavirus. And that surge may come sooner rather than later.