Trump warns coronavirus masks cannot meet demand as manufacturers fear lawsuits
As officials in Washington state faced the speed and scale of the growing coronavirus pandemic, they turned to the Strategic National Stockpile, a secretive reserve of emergency equipment meant to supplement shortages in a public health crisis.
They asked upfront for 233,000 respirators – a foreboding number that, if matched by all 50 states, would quickly overwhelm the nation’s last-resort stockpile of protective gear.
It was the beginning of a rush for respirator masks that President Donald Trump acknowledged on Wednesday cannot meet demand.
“Unfortunately, at present, public health experts anticipate shortages in the supply of personal respiratory devices available for use by healthcare workers in mitigating further transmission,” Trump said, ordering Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar to “take all appropriate and necessary steps” to increase emergency availability.
Washington state has since asked for more material. Other states have followed.
Concern over insufficient supplies has already compelled the White House coronavirus task force, led by Vice President Mike Pence, to revisit national standards for mask safety and manufacturing.
An official with the Strategic National Stockpile told McClatchy that the cache currently holds roughly 13 million N95 respirators – the model in greatest demand – and 30 million surgical masks, along with other personal protective equipment “that may be deployed to areas in need.”
But officials are saying that states should first tap their own supplies, including some respirators that have exceeded their shelf lives.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now say they have concluded that several models of N95 respirators can effectively protect against coronavirus particles even if their expiration dates have passed.
Administrators of the strategic stockpile said they would be carefully evaluating future requests from states to ensure that health care workers — and not others — are the true recipients of the supplies.
“Our goal is to prioritize the use of stockpiled PPE [personal protective equipment] for the protection of health and medical personnel,” said the National Strategic Stockpile official.
On Capitol Hill, the Trump administration is pushing Democrats and Republicans to approve emergency legislation that will protect mask manufacturers from lawsuits if their products fail to protect against infection from COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
The sense of urgency for a legislative workaround has led to one of the first negotiations between the White House and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office since President Donald Trump’s impeachment, which she led last year.
Pelosi omitted the proposal from a supplemental emergency funding bill last week over concerns the waiver was too broad. Pelosi’s office did not respond to requests for comment.
“They’re having good discussions with Speaker Pelosi on that– it has to get done,” Sen. Ron Johnson, Republican from Wisconsin, told reporters on Monday.
The bill would supplement the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act, a 2005 law that allows the government to provide manufacturers with immunity from liability when their products are used in a public health emergency.
“It’s important that we be able to get this done,” said Sen. Deb Fischer, a Republican from Nebraska and author of the bill. “I mean these are masks that have already been approved for use by health care officials. There are companies that are on hold and ready to get them manufactured and get them out soon. And our health professionals need them.”
White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham called on Congress to pass the PREP Act extension and said that Trump’s memorandum to HHS on Wednesday would expedite the delivery of general use respirators to health care workers.
“His administration has taken action to provide protection to manufacturers that will enable production of millions of additional masks for our healthcare providers,” Grisham said in a statement. “In light of today’s actions, we hope that Congress will consider amendments to the PREP Act and make these protections permanent.”
Last week, Pence and the task force visited a manufacturing center for 3M, one of the largest mask producers, and learned that the company had reached its maximum domestic production capacity of 35 million masks a month.
“The capacity exists,” one White House official told McClatchy. “The problem is that 31 million cannot be used at the moment – they’d work, but 3M and Honeywell don’t feel comfortable providing them without assurances they won’t be sued.”
An official with 3M said that it was “responding to a request for a proposal from the U.S. government” to contract with the company for additional supplies. The White House would not comment on potential federal contracts.
But the Department of Health and Human Services has recently committed to the purchase of 500 million additional N95 masks — an effort to “encourage manufacturers to ramp up production,” the National Strategic Stockpile official said, “now with the guarantee that they will not be left with excess supplies.”
Previous consecutive administrations have been warned by public health experts over supply shortages in the event of a pandemic.
But the sheer difficulty of predicting what the next public health crisis might look like has stifled government officials responsible for deciding how to spend limited resources allocated to the Strategic National Stockpile.
HHS estimated that $620 million would be required to maintain it for the current fiscal year – consistent with prior years – before the coronavirus outbreak hit.
“Should people have seen this coming? Yes and no. This is a thin slice of an issue, but it’s important for those who are dealing with it,” said Dan Glucksman, director of public affairs at the International Safety Equipment Association. “The entire public health response system had settled into this mental mindset of always being in a planning mode, and is suddenly in action mode.”
Emma Dumain contributed to this report.
Updates with comments from a Strategic National Stockpile official and White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham.
This story was originally published March 11, 2020 at 1:07 PM with the headline "Trump warns coronavirus masks cannot meet demand as manufacturers fear lawsuits."
