Government Redistributes Thousands of Medical Supplies Taken From Hoarders
The U.S. Justice Department and Health and Human Services are giving New York and New Jersey nearly 200,000 N95 respirator masks and medical supplies that the agencies confiscated from individuals who were discovered hoarding the supplies.
The FBI discovered the medical materials last week as part of an operation by the Justice Department’s COVID-19 Hoarding and Price Gouging Task Force. The DOJ then alerted HHS of the situation.
Per the Defense Production Act, HHS ordered the supplies to immediately be turned over to the government.
In addition to 192,000 N95 respirator masks, the FBI found 598,000 medical gloves and 130,000 surgical masks, along with N100 masks, procedure masks, surgical gowns, disinfectant towels, particulate filters, hand sanitizer, and disinfectant spray.
HHS Secretary Alex Azar maintains that “cracking down on the hoarding of vital supplies allows us to distribute this material to the heroic healthcare workers on the frontlines who are most in need.”
“Thanks to the quick work of the White House, the Department of Justice, and HHS, the seized resources were distributed in days to the doctors, nurses and first responders who need them,” Azar added.
It is expected that HHS will compensate the owner of the seized equipment at fair market value.
Following inspection of the supplies, HHS had them processed for delivery to the New Jersey Department of Health, the New York State Department, and the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
“If you are amassing critical medical equipment for the purpose of selling it at exorbitant prices, you can expect a knock at your door,” declared Attorney General Bill Barr in a statement. “The Department of Justice’s COVID-19 Hoarding and Price Gouging Task Force is working tirelessly around the clock with all our law enforcement partners to ensure that bad actors cannot illicitly profit from the COVID-19 pandemic facing our nation.”
Last week, Barr and Azar implemented an anti-price gouging and hoarding executive order after states at the epicenter of the outbreak, such as New York, complained of supply shortages.
The order prevents the hoarding of items designated as personal protective equipment (PPE), which includes medical gowns, ventilators, breathing devices, anesthesia gas machines, and the drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine — which are being used to help the symptoms of coronavirus.
“We’re talking about people hoarding these goods and materials on an industrial scale for the purposes of manipulating the market and ultimately driving windfall profits,” Barr explained of the order. “If you have a big supply of toilet paper in your house, this is not something you have to worry about. But, if you are sitting on a warehouse with masks, surgical masks, you will be hearing a knock on your door.”
“Very simply, we will not allow anyone to exploit the suffering of American citizens for their own profit,” President Trump said on the matter.
According to documents released Thursday by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has only supplied states with a fraction of the PPE they have requested, indicating a shortage.
House Democrats used the news to blast the Trump administration. “The new documents we are releasing today confirm the urgent warnings we have been hearing from our nation’s governors and health care professionals for weeks — they do not have enough personal protective equipment and medical supplies, and the administration has provided only a tiny fraction of what they desperately need,” said Representative Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), the Oversight Committee’s chair.
“The president must act immediately to take all steps within his authority to get personal protective equipment and medical supplies to our nation’s frontline responders who are risking everything to save their fellow Americans,” Maloney urged.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday announced that a new select House committee will look into the Trump administration’s response to COVID-19. The panel will also look at the management of the recently signed $2 trillion stimulus package. Pelosi said the committee will “root out waste, fraud, and abuse,” asserting that “where there’s money there’s also frequently mischief.”
Over the weekend, the speaker accused President Trump of fiddling while Americans died of coronavirus. “What did he know, and when did he know it? That’s for an after-action review. But as the president fiddles, people are dying,” she said.
The president responded by calling her a “sick puppy.”
https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/item/35326-government-redistributes-thousands-of-medical-supplies-from-hoarders