3M N95 particulate filtering face mask are seen at a store in East Palo Alto, California, United States on January 26, 2020.Multiple bidders can not only drive up prices by offering more money, but also by providing more favorable terms to distributors.
"FEMA and other organizations have the ability to say stop, you stop buying it and we'll disseminate it," said Brunjes, who previously helped set preparedness policy at the Homeland Security Institute, a federally funded center that provides analysis to the government. "They're choosing right now to not use that part of their disaster powers."
"It would be more efficient from our perspective if FEMA were purchasing everything that they could and answering the requests that the states have," Tingle said. "Because at the end of the day, we still incur a cost share for everything that FEMA purchases for us, so the funding from the federal side doesn't really change, it's the efficiency that changes when FEMA gets involved.
"We are at the unthinkable," said Mahshid Abir, a practicing emergency physician at the University of Michigan and a senior policy researcher at the Rand Corporation. "We're here and I worry that a lot of hospitals are not in that mode."
Yeah'Jarrod' WHY!!!!?
Why do ststes need medical supplies? Hospitals are empty.