February 8, 2021
In the midst of a once-in-a-generation health care crisis that has tested our manufacturing resiliency and the strength of our overall economy, our nation needs a strategic plan to bring personal protective equipment manufacturing home.
President Joe Biden has outlined a robust COVID-19 pandemic response plan, the Build Back Better initiative, and signed executive orders to strengthen the manufacturing supply chain for these essential products. These initiatives, designed to bolster domestic manufacturing supply chains for PPE, can ensure that front-line workers never again experience disastrous shortages of the life-saving products they need to safely do their job.
We welcome the president’s commitment and believe his plan, coupled with passing strong bipartisan legislation on Capitol Hill gives us a pivotal opportunity to build a long-term, robust domestic manufacturing chain for these essential products for many years to come.
We need do nothing more than recall the chaos at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic to grasp the danger of our continued dependence on offshore sources for PPE. As international supply chains broke down at the height of the crisis, many health care workers were scrambling to find PPE, making trash bags into isolation gowns and reusing disposable masks. This should be a lesson that is never repeated — and a call to action for us all. READ FULL ARTICLE HERE