In the absence of action from the Trump administration, firms kept exporting masks, ventilators and other life-saving gear overseas U.S. hospitals fighting coronavirus now need. Export data reviewed by USA TODAY shows a big spike in February shipments.
U.S. exports of surgical masks, ventilators and other personal protective gear to China skyrocketed in January and February, when the coronavirus was wreaking havoc in the country where it began and as U.S. intelligence agencies warned it would soon spread.
The data show how U.S. manufacturers stepped up production and cleared out inventory to supply protective medical equipment to China for weeks, even as the threat of the coronavirus became clear. The CDC reported its first case in the United States on Jan. 20. Within the next two weeks, the World Health Organization and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services had declared the disease a public health emergency.
Jesse Wang, co-founder of LuggEasy, a company that provides shipping services to Chinese residents in the U.S., confirmed the surge of masks exports in February. His company exported 14,000 to 15,000 pounds of masks from the U.S. to China in early 2020 alone. The price of ventilators vary from about $20,000 to $50,000 depending on the model, meaning the U.S. sent anywhere from 540 to 1,360 of them to China in January and February alone.
Exports of other protective garments, like surgical suits, skyrocketed, too. The U.S. shipped more than $271,000 worth of such supplies to China in January – nine times more than the previous January, the data show. In February, those shipments reached $13.4 million. Moskowitz is not alone. The mayors of 192 cities across the country said in a survey released Friday that they do not have sufficient face masks for their first responders and medical personnel, and 186 cities said they faced a shortage of other personal protective equipment.
“We will fairly soon be at a point where we have far more than we can use, even after we stockpile for some future catastrophe, which we hope doesn’t happen,” Trump said. “We’re going to be distributing to countries around the world. We’ll go to Italy, we’ll go to France, we’ll go to Spain.”
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