Watch: Gavin Newsom to discuss buying millions of masks, other coronavirus protection

Gov. Gavin Newsom was scheduled to discuss at noon Wednesday California’s efforts to buy masks and other equipment to protect doctors, nurses and other essential workers from the coronavirus.

The video is no longer live, but you can watch a replay here:

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Newsom said Tuesday he would give an update on personal protective equipment, also known as PPE.

Newsom announced Tuesday night on MSNBC that state government had signed agreements to buy 200 million masks per month. He said he worked with a “consortia” of nonprofits to secure the deal and that the masks would be made overseas.

He did not give any information about which nonprofits and companies worked on the deal, except to say that a California-based manufacturer with “appropriate contacts in Asia” was involved.

Since the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 hit California, Newsom has described the state’s rapidly growing needs for more PPE to protect doctors, nurses and other medical professionals, as well as essential workers like grocery store clerks.

He’s acknowledged that buying PPE has been challenging as states and the federal government have competed against one another in the same limited markets, driving up prices. The state has previously cobbled together a supply using masks from its own stockpile, donations from California companies and purchases from various sources, ultimately distributing 41.4 million N95 masks, which are thought to be the most effective in preventing viral transmission.

“We were going out and getting 5 million here, 500,000 there, 200,000 there, competing against other states, competing against the federal government,” Newsom told MSNBC host Rachel Maddow. “We decided enough of the small ball. Let’s use our purchasing power. Let’s go at scale.”

The state’s Office of Emergency Services needs to provide an initial payment of $495 million to obtain the masks, Newsom’s Department of Finance wrote to state lawmakers in a Tuesday letter.

Newsom has acknowledged that California has been crowding smaller states out of the markets for N95 masks and driving up prices. It’s unclear how this deal will affect other states’ ability to buy their own masks, but Newsom said he hopes that California will be able to share some of the masks it buys through the agreement with other western states.

The new masks will begin arriving in the next few weeks, Newsom said.

This story was originally published April 8, 2020 at 11:53 AM.