The White House said Monday that some states are requesting far more medical supplies than they need to fight the coronavirus pandemic, pushing back against criticism that the distribution of vital equipment has been chaotic.
As the crisis has spread across the U.S., several governors have complained that they have not been receiving the protective gear and lifesaving ventilators they have requested. On a call with governors Monday, Trump administration officials said miscalculations by the states for missteps in how supplies have been distributed.
"In some cases, people are requesting 10 times what they actually need," White House adviser Jared Kushner said, according to audio obtained by The Associated Press.
He said the problem isn't a lack of medical supplies in the country overall, but rather that they aren't all where they need to be. He urged governors to speak with hospitals to gather data on "what they're actually using" before requesting equipment.
Oregon and Washington, for example, have sent virtually all the ventilators they received from the federal stockpile to New York — which is currently the epicenter of the U.S. outbreak.
It's not clear what criteria states are using to arrive at their requests, but data collected from the states by The Associated Press suggests the distribution system has been marked by extreme inconsistencies in those asks — and in the subsequent deliveries. That raises questions about whether the equipment has been distributed where it was most needed as the virus spread across the U.S.
Colorado, for example, asked the federal government for 4.5 million masks — nearly nine times as many as Pennsylvania, a state with more than twice the population and more than twice as many confirmed cases. Colorado received just over 500,000 of them — 188,000 more than Pennsylvania.
Meanwhile, Virginia requested 2.2 million respirators for health care workers, while neighboring North Carolina, with slightly more people and about the same number of confirmed cases, asked for just 501,000. North Carolina has received less than half what it requested, but still far more than Virginia.
Oklahoma, which has relatively few cases so far, received more masks than it requested and slightly more than Louisiana, one of the hardest-hit states.
In a written response to questions, FEMA said all states and territories had received some gear but that it was prioritizing "high transmission areas" based on population and not on quantities requested by the states.
It said the majority of the nation's stockpile had gone to hot spots, with most of it directed to the region including New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
