Letter to President Donald Trump - Senator Baldwin to President Trump: Wisconsinites Need Personal Protective Equipment and Medical Supplies Now

Letter

Dear President Trump,

I write today on behalf of Wisconsinites still in need of personal protective equipment (PPE) and
critical medical supplies. I urge you to act now to deliver the assistance states have requested and
need before it is too late.

Our nation's response to this pandemic is contingent upon a cohesive national strategy, and a
coordinated effort to ensure that supplies are made available where they are needed most. States
are on the frontlines of the response to this pandemic, and your administration has continuously
failed to provide them with the leadership and supplies they desperately need. Wisconsin
anticipates that cases of COVID-19 will continue to grow, and the state needs immediate
assistance from the federal government to ensure we have the PPE to keep our frontline workers
safe, ventilators and associated medications for those with serious cases of COVID-19, and the
supplies needed to conduct testing for COVID-19.

Wisconsin has only received a fraction of the supplies it has requested from the Department of
Health and Human Services (HHS) and from the Federal Emergency Management Agency
(FEMA). In addition, some outstanding orders from Wisconsin entities have been redirected,
including an order of 1,000 N95 masks ordered by the Brown County Sheriff's Department and
the Green Bay Police Department, as reported by the Green Bay Press Gazette on April 10.
Furthermore, despite several official agency requests, multiple congressional letters, and public
pleas from our Governor, my home state has yet to receive a single ventilator. Throughout this
entire crisis, HHS and FEMA have failed to provide a sufficient explanation or any transparency
on how decisions are made with respect to disbursement, other than to offer that these vital and
limited supplies, such as PPE and ventilators, are delivered to "hot spots." It is unclear how your
ever-changing response team defines "hot spot" and there appears to be no strategy for delivering
PPE and ventilators to areas of future need.

Moreover, the fact that the federal government is rejecting requests from states makes clear that
the federal government has failed to secure the level of production of ventilators and PPE that we
need. According to documents recently released by the House Oversight and Government
Reform Committee, ninety percent of the supplies of PPE in the Strategic National Stockpile
(SNS) have been depleted and industry will be unable to deliver at a pace that meets demand.

Unfortunately, ventilators and PPE are not the only critical supplies in shortage. Patients that are
placed on ventilators require specific medications, including sedatives. A recent estimate from
the American Hospital Association found that almost one million Americans could require
ventilation, and that demand for related sedatives has increased substantially. Furthermore, your
promotion of hydroxychloroquine as a "treatment" for COVID-19 has contributed to another
shortage. This drug, which is approved for treatment of chronic conditions such as lupus, is not
approved for treatment of COVID-19. Encouraging its use for COVID-19 puts people at risk,
and jeopardizes access for those who truly need it. Finally, Wisconsin is experiencing a shortage
of supplies needed to conduct tests for COVID-19, including nasopharyngeal (NP) swabs.
Without these swabs, public health officials are left in the dark, unable to properly diagnose and
care for those who are sick. These critical shortages demand your full attention immediately.

Our response to this crisis could have been bolstered by early interventions and information.
According to media reports, intelligence community analysts had warned that a novel
coronavirus could be a cataclysmic event as early as November and reports about the virus began
appearing in the President's Daily Brief in early January. Yet it appears you did not take action
to ramp up the production of any critical supplies in preparation.

The Defense Production Act (DPA) allows you to increase the production of PPE and medical
supplies like ventilators to meet an increase in demand. You should have taken full advantage of
this tool before we reached a crisis point, and you can and should be taking action now to meet
our current demand. In addition to utilizing your existing authority, I have introduced legislation
that would require you to implement the DPA to ramp up production of needed supplies. And
through the passage of the CARES Act (P.L. 116-136), Congress has provided you with the tools
and funding to make an immediate and lasting impact. The CARES Act gave the DPA account a
$1 billion increase, which should immediately be spent to incentivize the development of new
equipment and supplies for COVID-19 response and preparedness. The legislation also
increased funding for the SNS from $705 million to over $16 billion. You should immediately
use the funding provided by Congress to replenish the stockpile so supplies can move quickly to
states.

It is past time that you take action to demonstrate leadership and support our states. I look
forward to your response and more importantly, to the action you will take to address these
concerns.

Source