The Trump administration is distributing to medical professionals in New York and New Jersey hundreds of thousands of masks and other highly sought after coronavirus supplies confiscated from price gougers.
The Justice and Health and Human Services Departments on Thursday said it has begun sending to hospitals and first responders a plethora of seized medical items, including 598,000 medical-grade gloves, 130,000 surgical masks, and 192,000 N95 respirator masks. Other supplies included N100 masks, surgical gowns, disinfectant towels, particulate filters, bottles of hand sanitizer, and bottles of spray disinfectant.
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The supplies were found on March 30, a week after Attorney General William Barr said the Trump administration would go after people who charged exorbitant amounts of money for items desperately needed by healthcare workers.
“Cracking down on the hoarding of vital supplies allows us to distribute this material to the heroic healthcare workers on the front lines who are most in need,” HHS Secretary Alex Azar said in a statement. “Thanks to the quick work of the White House, the Department of Justice, and HHS, the seized resources were distributed in days to the doctors, nurses and first responders who need them.”
The hoarder was not named but was paid market value for the items. The items were directed to government agencies in New York, which reported 83,000 confirmed cases of the country’s 216,000 total as of Thursday, and New Jersey.
Peter Navarro, overseeing the Defense Production Act implementation for the White House, said the move “is the first of many such investigations that are underway.” Under the Defense Production Act, the administration has legal authority to intervene if a person or group is hoarding an unreasonable amount of medical supplies or selling them at a price higher than market value.
