Posts Tagged ‘N95 Respirators’

Unprecedented federal interference  On April 11, during the peak of COVID-19 cases and deaths in New York City, the Federal Emergency Management Agency intervened and demanded orders of medical equipment allocated to our relief efforts be redirected to the federal government. FEMA then seized 50,000 N95 respirators we had ordered without giving us an explanation or telling us where those respirators were going.  In my 15 years of working in the manufacturing industry with international and domestic supply chains, I have never — never — had the federal government interfere like this.  It wasn’t long before I realized it wasn’t only happening in New York and New Jersey. FEMA confiscated San Francisco’s PPE order as it went through Customs, even as the Trump administration told states and cities to procure their own equipment rather than rely on the federal government. Since those reports of FEMA quietly seizing materials, at least six states have…