The US was offered millions of masks in January.
The Trump administration turned the offer down.
A Texas medical supply company told the federal government it could make 1.7 million N95 masks for the US per week — but no order came
The federal government turned down an offer that would have allowed the United States to significantly ramp up domestic mask production in the earliest stages of the coronavirus pandemic.
The decision later forced the Trump administration to turn to expensive, untested third-party distributors and to use the Defense Production Act to compel companies to increase output.
In the meantime, after years of poor preparation, the rejection of Prestige Ameritech’s offer, and weeks of delivery and acquisition delays, many frontline workers must continue to make do with inadequate — and even dangerous — levels of PPE.
It’s unclear exactly why top officials turned down the offer, but the decision to do so continues to have consequences for the many frontline workers who still lack the necessary equipment to protect themselves on the job.
The Post reports Mike Bowen, owner of the largest surgical face mask producer in the US — Prestige Ameritech in Texas —
contacted top officials in the Department of Health and Human Services on January 22, the day after the first US coronavirus cases were identified.
His pitch: Provide the funds needed to dust off four dormant manufacturing lines, and his firm would produce 1.7 million N95 masks every week.
According to Bowen, he’d been raising the alarm for years that the US was too dependent on foreign countries (where nearly 90 percent of masks used in the country come from) for production, and argued his manufacturing lines offered both a way around that, and to ensure the US would have the masks it needed.
Rick Bright — the former director of HHS’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (who was ousted in April, and later filed a whistleblower complaint alleging he was demoted for fighting for science-based preparations “over political expediency”) —
pushed top HHS officials to accept Bowen’s offer, to no avail. Prestige Ameritech later exported a million masks to China.
Officials gave a variety of reasons why the
The federal government went on to spend more than $600 million on contracts including mask production.
A tactical training company with no history of producing medical equipment was given $55 million to make N95 masks for $5.50 each
The USA Bowen’s manufacturing lines, which could be making more than 7 million N95 masks for the US every month for 0.79 per mask, remain unused.
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