Archives: Morning Breakouts

“It’s ‘Lord of the Flies: PPE Edition’,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, a former U.S. official who specializes in disaster response. “We need some global solidarity, and instead we have global competition.” In other news on health care workers: staff shortages, tales from the front lines, rationing gear, and more.

As diagnostic testing continues to pick up speed, shortages of some supplies and a backlog of samples push hospitals, academic medical centers and labs to create their own patchwork solutions.

States have been forced to compete with each other to get ventilators and other medical supplies after the federal government put most of the onus on the governors to acquire equipment. While some governors try to avoid being too critical of the Trump administration, others expressed their frustration. “To say, ‘we’re a backup’ — I mean, the surgeon general alluded to Pearl Harbor," said Washington Gov. Jay Inslee. "Can you imagine if Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, ‘I’ll be right behind you, Connecticut. Good luck building those battleships’?”