The mayor of Seattle wanted “mass tents” from the federal government to rapidly build shelters to house people in quarantine. The state of New York pleaded for help from the Army Corps of Engineers to quickly build hospitals. Oregon’s governor repeatedly pressed the Department of Health and Human Services for hundreds of thousands of respirators, gowns and gloves, face shields or goggles.
After so many of these pleas, the Trump administration is only just now moving to begin enlistment of much of his government in what the White House had promised for weeks would be a “whole of government” approach to the rampaging coronavirus.
Yet despite promises of a “whole of government” effort, key agencies — like the Army Corps of Engineers, other parts of the Defense Department, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Veterans Affairs — had not been asked to play much of a role.
Oregon sent a letter to Vice President Mike Pence on March 3 asking for 400,000 N95 masks. For days, it got no response, and only by March 14 received its first shipment, of 36,800 masks. But there was a problem-- most of the equipment they got was well past the expiration date and so “wouldn’t be suitable for surgical settings,” New York City also put in a request for more than 2 million masks but only recently received 76,000- and all of them were expired. Gov. Kate Brown of Oregon told reporters, “We’ve been contacting this administration every single day and we have received nothing. Zip. Zero. Nothing from them.”
After many weeks, hospital ships are finally being called into action. Yet the Department of Veterans Affairs-- legally designated as the backup health care system in national emergencies-- awaits requests for help. The veterans department has a surplus of beds in many of its 172 hospital centers and a robust number of special rooms for patients with breathing disorders.
The sprawling system of emergency doctors and nurses ready to be deployed by the Department of Health and Human Services — known as the National Disaster Medical System — is also still waiting for orders, other than to staff locations where passengers offloaded from cruise ships are being quarantined.
And the Defense Department, home to 1.3 million active-duty troops and a civilian and military infrastructure that has made planning for national emergencies almost an art form, has yet to be deployed to its fullest capabilities.
Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper said this week that the Pentagon will make available to the Department of Health and Human Services up to 5 million N95 masks, which can be used to help protect health workers and vulnerable people against the virus. The Pentagon has also just now been asked to make available 2,000 ventilators.
A spokeswoman at the Army Corps of Engineers said that the agency— which has had its massive capacity put to use in past disasters like Hurricane Katrina— was still awaiting orders.
“The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is prepared to assist the nation in a time of crisis to the very best of its capabilities, and we are postured to lean forward when an official request is received through the Department of Defense,” Raini W. Brunson, an Army Corps spokeswoman said in a statement. “However, at this time, we have not been assigned a mission.”
FEMA officials said the Department of Health and Human Services remains in charge of the federal response, and it too is waiting for orders from the agency before it moves to ramp up assistance.
Hey Trump--Get your shit together! People are dying!
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