Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Government Cancels $55.5M Deal With Company That Had No History Of Selling Masks
The Wall Street Journal: FEMA Cancels $55.5 Million Mask Contract With Panthera
The federal government said it canceled a $55.5 million contract for respiratory masks, signed last month with a small Virginia firm with no history in the mask business and a parent company in bankruptcy. The no-bid contract, with Panthera Worldwide LLC, was one of the largest mask orders signed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as it has raced in recent weeks to find masks and other protective equipment during the coronavirus pandemic. (Maremont, 5/12)
The Washington Post: Coronavirus: A Contractor Promised FEMA 10 Million Masks For $55 Million. It Did Not Deliver.
Lea Crager, a FEMA spokeswoman, said Tuesday the company had requested another four-day extension, to May 15, but the agency denied the request. FEMA moved to cancel the contract Tuesday, a day after the deadline. “FEMA will continue to coordinate with our federal and state partners, along with private vendors and supply companies, to identify and deliver medical supplies to prioritized areas,” she said in a statement. (Stanley-Becker, 5/12)
The Hill: FEMA Cancels $55 Million Mask Contract
In total, the federal government has spent more than $110 million in contracts for the much needed masks, the Journal reported last month. At least 80 percent of the companies that the government contracted out to make the masks were either first-time government contractors or had only completed small-scale federal contracts previously, the newspaper reported. (Johnson, 5/12)
In other news on masks —
The Associated Press: Counterfeit Masks Reaching Frontline Health Workers In US
On a day when COVID-19 cases soared, healthcare supplies were scarce and an anguished doctor warned he was being sent to war without bullets, a cargo plane landed at the Los Angeles International Airport, supposedly loaded with the ammo doctors and nurses were begging for: some of the first N95 medical masks to reach the U.S. in almost six weeks. Already healthcare workers who lacked the crucial protection had caught COVID-19 after treating patients infected with the highly contagious new coronavirus. (Linderman and Mendoza, 5/13)
The Washington Post: Mask Or No Mask? Face Coverings Become Tool In Partisan Combat.
At the end of April, the three commissioners in West Virginia’s Monongalia County sent a letter to Gov. Jim Justice with a request. Would he issue an executive order mandating the use of face masks in the county, which includes West Virginia University, for the 17-day period in May when 12,000 students and their family members were expected to stream back into town to recover their belongings from off-campus housing amid the novel coronavirus pandemic? (Stanley-Becker, 5/12)
The Associated Press: Wear A Mask? Even With 20,000 Dead, Some New Yorkers Don't
Eric Leventhal felt a sneeze coming and panicked.The Brooklynite left his cloth face mask at home for a morning run in a park last week. Walking home, he turned toward an empty street and let the sneeze out, hoping no one would notice. Too bad for him, there’s no hiding without a mask in virus-stricken New York City. “I picked my head up and I caught eyes with a woman who was wearing a mask, an older woman,” Leventhal recalled recently. “She was just kind of shaking her head.” (Seiner and Hays, 5/13)
