Virtual March’ Demands Immediate Federal Action on PPE
What your doctor is reading on Medscape.com:
MAY 02, 2020 — Healthcare professionals helped lead a nationwide “virtual march” today to demand adequate supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE).
More than 900 people clicked in one by one for the start of the 2 pm EDT event. Technical issues resulted in a delayed start, and some who recognized friends’ names as they popped up greeted them and typed out congratulations to the event organizers as music from pianist and DJ ELEW (Eric Robert Lewis) played. Actors Keegan-Michael Key and Alysia Reiner (“Orange is the New Black”) then appeared on-screen to kick off the event.
The most urgent demand, say the event organizers, called Need Masks Today, is for the White House to expand use of the Defense Production Act (DPA) to require immediate manufacturing and equitable distribution of masks and other PPE. The Need Masks Today effort was coordinated by Yale University resident physicians and other medical professionals.
“For lack of a 75-cent piece of equipment, we’re losing lives and putting more lives at risk,” said Lisa Lattanza, MD, chair of the Department of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation at the Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut.
“This is real. And part of the problem is it’s not real to people who aren’t facing this every single day. It has to get very real, very fast,” she said.
Law Has Been Used for Ventilators, Not Masks
While the White House has used the DPA to ramp up production of some items, such as ventilators, the law has not been extended fully to PPE.
The Defense Production Act gives the government the authority to control the supply chain, from compelling companies to make certain items to distributing them.
States have said they need the directive from the federal level because the current system forces them to compete with each other.
On March 4, at the start of the pandemic, according to the US Department of Health & Human Services, the Strategic National Stockpile had only 42 million masks, CNBC reported.
On April 18, the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security estimated that 236 million masks — N95 respirators and medical masks together — would be needed for a 100-day COVID-19 wave, assuming strict adherence to social distancing.
