Ninety percent of the federal personal protective equipment stockpile had been depleted as the Health and Human Services Department made its "final shipments" of N95 respirators, surgical and face masks, face shields, gowns and gloves, according to new documents released Wednesday by the House Oversight Committee
The remaining 10% of the stockpile, HHS said, would be reserved for federal workers and would not be sent to the states.
The documents, which report the distribution of personal protective equipment to state and local governments as of April 6, show that only 11.7 million N95 respirator masks and 7,920 ventilators have been distributed across the nation — both amounts small fractions of the estimated amount of protective equipment needed by frontline medical workers.
HHS confirmed to the Associated Press on Wednesday that the remaining equipment in the federal stockpile was in the process of being deployed.
President Donald Trump and his administration have insisted that the stockpile of ventilators and personal protective equipment is sufficient to combat the virus.
"We took over a stockpile where the cupboard was bare and where the testing system was broken and old. And we redid it," Trump said in Tuesday's coronavirus task force briefing.
As governors have warned of shortages of ventilators and personal protective equipment, on Wednesday, the Trump administration placed its first order under the Defense Production Act, compelling General Motors to deliver 30,000 ventilators by August. General Motors will be reimbursed nearly $490 million by the federal government for the order.
Vice President Mike Pence said the first round of newly produced ventilators from General Electric and Hamilton Medical arrived in the national stockpile and that the federal government would continue to add newly manufactured resources. He also said additional ventilators had been distributed Wednesday.
President Donald Trump's administration used its vast wartime powers Wednesday to make its first formal order of equipment amid the coronavirus pandemic, compelling General Motors to deliver 30,000 ventilators by August.
The order, announced by the Department of Health and Human Services, will require the Detroit automaker to build more than 6,000 ventilators by June as governors in some states say they are woefully short of the lifesaving units and unable to buy more.
Trump and senior aides threatened to invoke the Korean War-era Defense Production Act as lawmakers in both parties had sought. Though the president signed several memos delegating authority, the administration had not taken the final step of requiring companies to produce equipment, USA TODAY reported last week.
The GM order, which represents the first instance of the administration taking that step, follows combative remarks from the president in which he accused GM of reneging on an initial voluntary agreement. The president subsequently described the company as doing a "fantastic job."
ConversionConversion EmoticonEmoticon