Coronavirus: Feds Crack Down On Hoarding Of Masks, Gloves, Gowns
NEW YORK, NY — The new coronavirus has led to a shortage of vital personal protective equipment to the point that people have resorted to creating and donating homemade masks while companies change production lines to create the much-needed products. Despite the shortage, some are hoarding supplies, forcing the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to target hoarders.
In addition, officials announced Thursday they will distribute the hoarded products — including 192,000 N95 respirator masks — to those on the front lines of the COVID-19 disease in New York and New Jersey.
The FBI found the supplies during an enforcement operation by the Justice COVID-19 Hoarding and Price Gouging Task Force on March 30. In addition to the N95 respirator masks, the supplies found included 598,000 medical grade gloves and 130,000 surgical masks, procedure masks, N100 masks, surgical gowns, disinfectant towels, particulate filters, bottles of hand sanitizer and bottles of spray disinfectant.
"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," HHS Secretary Alex Azar said. "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. President Trump's all-of-America approach to combating the coronavirus involves an aggressive approach to stopping hoarding, and the American public can play a role by being on the lookout for this behavior."
HHS will pay the owner of the hoarded equipment pre-COVID-19 fair market value for the supplies. After inspecting the supplies, they began distributing the products to meet the critical need for supplies among health care workers at the New Jersey Department of Health, the New York State Department of Health and the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
"This is the first of many such investigations that are underway," Peter Navarro, Defense Production Act policy coordinator and the president's top trade official, said in a statement. "All individuals and companies hoarding any of these critical supplies, or selling them at well above market prices, are hereby warned they should turn them over to local authorities or the federal government now or risk prompt seizure by the federal government."
Vendors interested in selling PPE to the federal government should contact the Federal Emergency Management Agency at https://www.fema.gov/coronavirus/how-to-help. Anyone who learns of hoarding or price gouging of PPE should report it to the National Center for Disaster Fraud by dialing 1-866-720-5721 or emailing disaster@leo.gov.
HHS and the Federal Emergency Management Agency continue to collaborate with private industry to overcome the shortage of PPE across the country amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
On March 25, the Defense Production Act and Presidential Executive Order went into effect to prevent hoarding of reasonable demands of business, personal, or home consumption, or to resale at prices in excess of prevailing market prices, also known as hoarding and price gouging, of medical supplies critical to the COVID-19 response.
"If you are amassing critical medical equipment for the purpose of selling it at exorbitant prices, you can expect a knock at your door," Attorney General William P. Barr said. "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."
This article originally appeared on the Sayville-Bayport Patch
