The Open Cities Community Health Center in St. Paul, Minnesota, is considering shutting down because it doesn’t have enough face masks. Doctors at Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis are performing invasive procedures on coronavirus patients with loose-fitting surgical masks rather than the tight respirator masks recommended by health agencies. At a Los Angeles emergency room, doctors were given a box of expired masks, and when they tried to put them on, the elastic bands snapped.
At a White House briefing Thursday, President Donald Trump said that millions of masks were in production and that the federal government had made efforts to address the shortages, though he did not provide details. But he said it was largely up to governors to deal with the problem. Story continuesThe president also said there were no immediate plans to address medical equipment shortages by activating the Defense Production Act, a Korean War-era law that authorizes presidents to take extraordinary action to force American industry to ramp up production of equipment needed for national security.
Federal health officials say respirator masks can be used for eight hours of continuous or intermittent use and should be discarded after treating an infected patient. Many doctors around the country said they are being given just one, to use indefinitely, and they spray it down with Lysol or wipe it off, not knowing whether that will help preserve it.
“We are concerned that CDC recommendations are based solely on supply chain and manufacturing challenges,” the association said in a letter to Congress. “It’s also concerning that these recommendations do not offer strategies to address the limited manufacturing and supply chain of necessary personal protective equipment.”
A cache of several thousand face masks and other gear from the stockpile recently arrived in Oregon and Washington. Officials in both states said it was far less than what they had requested. Several large hospital chains said they had adequate supplies for now, though they have taken steps to ration their use. The George Washington University Hospital in Washington, D.C., has told heath care workers they can use a respirator mask five times before discarding it, and it is keeping its mask supply under lock and key.
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