In the effort to procure everything from ventilators to surgical masks, Colorado officials have run up against a new COVID-19 reality: Without enough supplies to go around, state leaders have found themselves in a virtual bidding war on just about everything.
“These are not normal times,” Scott Bookman, the COVID-19 incident manager for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, told 9Wants to Know on Monday. “And we really have a system right now where the states are bidding against each other or the states are bidding against the federal government.
“There’s probably a lot of hospitals that are also bidding and we all seem to be fighting with each other,” he said.
A few weeks ago, Colorado officials thought they’d closed a deal for 500 desperately needed ventilators.
“We had our purchase order in and it got canceled,” Bookman said. “And we learned later that is was canceled because the vents were going to go to FEMA instead.”
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) ended up transferring 100 of the ventilators to Colorado. But it was a stark lesson in the new reality as governors, federal officials and hospital administrators have scrambled to get their hands on the medical machines and supplies they need in the face of a deadly pandemic.
Gov. Jared Polis, on an appearance on CNN April 3, expressed his frustration.
“Well, either be in or out, folks,” Polis said of the federal government. “That’s kind of my message. Either, you’re buying them, and you’re providing them to the states, and you’re letting us know what we’re going to get and when we’re going to get them, or stay out and let us buy ‘em.”
But it’s not just ventilators.
“It really does feel like everything,” Bookman said. “The great needs right now are really around personal protective equipment. We need gowns, we need N-95 masks, we need gloves, we need goggles.
“Really, it’s everything we can do to keep our healthcare workers safe.”
Ditto tests for the disease.
“Tests are also in great need as well,” Bookman said. “And that really runs the spectrum from re-agents to specimen collection kits – we’re breaking it down to sterile swabs and viral transport media. … You know, we order 200,000 swabs and we get a thousand,” Bookman said.
Tests will be critical if the state is to ease the public health orders keeping most people at home.
“We’re starting to refer to that as, what does new normal look like?” Bookman said. “It almost certainly involves mass testing across the state, the ability for anybody who needs a test to get it, the ability to do surveillance, contact tracing, and making sure that when we identify outbreaks that we’re able to snuff them out pretty quickly.”
But for that to happen, there have to be dramatic improvements in the supply chain.
Until then?
“I’ve been referring to it as Lord of the Flies,” Bookman said, referring to the 1954 novel about a group of boys stranded on an island. “It just really feels like we are all on our own, fighting against each other, trying to get these needed supplies in a time of crisis. And we are really looking forward to the time that the supply chain catches up and we’re able to get all the supplies that everyone needs to respond to this crisis.”
Contact 9Wants to Know investigator Kevin Vaughan with tips about this or any story: kevin.vaughan@9news.com or 303-871-1862.
SUGGESTED VIDEOS: COVID-19 Coronavirus