The US has sent fans around the world, but can’t find many now, the watchdog finds

The US has sent fans around the world, but can’t find many now, the watchdog finds

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One hundred and fifty fans went to countries with zero new cases per day on the date the government pledged to send life-saving machines abroad as the United States approached the scarcity of much-needed fans. Kiribati and Nauru, two of the countries that received a total of 20 ventilators, have never had a confirmed case of coronavirus, according to the World Health Organization.

From late May to late September, the previous government pledged to send 8,722 fans to 43 countries, but without clear criteria for determining which countries need fans or how many to send, the GAO found.

In April, Trump claimed the United States was the “fan king”, despite falsely claiming that the Obama administration left him without one. In fact, the Department of Health and Human Services told CNN that the US had 16,660 fans on hand – almost all of which had been in the country’s stockpile since the end of the previous government – with another 2,425 in maintenance. But there was still a serious shortage around the world, and the United States was reaching the peak of its first wave of infections, with approximately 2,000 deaths a day in mid-April.

When the pandemic started to escalate in late March, Trump invoked the Defense Production Act to increase the production of N95 fans and masks, two key components in the battle against the coronavirus.

In May, the United States Agency for International Development began delivering the first fans abroad, GAO said, with initial shipments going to South Africa, El Salvador and Russia.

The National Security Council instructed USAID on decisions regarding “fan donations, including recipient countries, quantities and manufacturers.” But neither USAID nor the NSC provided any information on how disbursement decisions were made.

The NSC did not respond to questions from GAO, the report said.

Fan distribution was not part of USAID’s initial plan for Covid’s response, further complicating the effort.

Almost all 8,722 fans were distributed by December, but USAID did not have a reliable way to track machines and had only “limited information” about their locations, the report said. Only in December did USAID tell GAO that it had “started implementing” a process to locate fans, which involves gathering information from manufacturers, service providers, overseas ministries of health and partners.

The lack of knowledge about the location of the fans happened despite the agency having the resources to track the machines for long-term supervision.

Five countries accounted for almost half of the fans: Brazil, Indonesia and South Africa received 1,000 machines each, while El Salvador received 600 and Peru received 500. But the needs in these countries varied widely. El Salvador had 74 new cases and one death on the day USAID committed to placing ventilators, while Brazil had 33,322 new cases and 1,046 deaths.

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