After President Joe Biden signed an executive order ordering U.S. agencies to use the law, the government identified deficiencies in 12 critical supply categories, White House supplies coordinator Tim Manning said at Friday’s meeting.
The law, said Manning, will help resolve what he described as a critical shortage of rubber gloves, which is a “serious need”.
“There is a great need for masks, shields and gloves, and we are not currently producing them at the rate we need to meet demand. We are already working to increase the availability of N95 masks for frontline employees, but another critical area of concern that we continually hear about is surgical gloves. At the moment, we just don’t have enough gloves, “said Manning.
“We depend almost 100% on foreign manufacturers to export the surgical gloves from our country that protect healthcare professionals to us, and that is unacceptable and we are using all of our authorities to fix this,” said Manning.
Management will also use DPA to expand Pfizer’s priority ratings, including filling pumps and tangential flow filtration sliding unit components needed to manufacture Covid-19 vaccines, which will eliminate an existing bottleneck in production.
This action, said Manning, “will allow Pfizer to increase production and meet its goals of delivering hundreds of millions of doses in the coming months.”
The DPA will also be used to invest in six suppliers to conduct Covid-19 tests at home and at points of care.
“The country is well behind where we need to be in testing, particularly in the rapid home test that will allow us to return to normal activities, such as work and school,” said Manning, noting that “61 million points of care, or testing at home will be available by the end of this summer. ”
Manning did not provide additional details about the contracts or identify the companies involved.