COVID-19 cases in the United States are surging, but healthcare workers are at risk for lacking some very necessary items: personal protective equipment (PPE) like gloves and gowns.
Health and Human Services Department documents obtained by NBC News show that national bodies in charge of distributing such equipment have vastly depleted stocks. The news comes as US coronavirus cases reach record levels.
The documents, as well as testimony from hospitals and healthcare workers, point to a national stockpile that appears to be running low of key equipment, and that did not ship anywhere close to what authorities around the country said they needed.
The documents show that both the Strategic National Stockpile, a national stockpile of equipment for public-health emergencies, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) have 900,000 gloves left in reserve after having shipped 82.7 million of them to states and other health authorities.
Read the full article on Business Insider.
