Hospitals in the New York City area are turning to a private distributor to airlift millions of protective masks out of China. The U.S. military is flying specialized swabs out of Italy. And a Chicago-area medical supply firm is taking to the skies as well because a weekslong boat trip across the ocean just won’t do.
A national survey out Wednesday drives home that nearly a quarter of hospitals have fewer than 100 N95 masks on hand and 20% report an immediate need for ventilators.
Hospitals identified hand sanitizer as the second-most pressing shortage, with 64% of respondents saying they were already running out. Next was surgical masks, which provide less protection than the N95 masks. Nearly half of hospitals had fewer than 1,000 on hand; a quarter of them reported going through 1,000 per day.
Medline started delivering face masks by airplane last week after manufacturing resumed in China. Flying the supplies in will shorten the “manufacturing-to-dock” time by three to four weeks, and the firm will not be passing along the “significant increase in cost” to customers.
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