Remember the shortage of medical gowns during COVID? Feds spending $350 million for stockpile

Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Six U.S. companies will spend at least $350 million to manufacture medical gowns to store in the Strategic National Stockpile. The purchase comes years after doctors and nurses working in hospitals found themselves without the equipment while COVID-19 raged. The purchase of the gowns is one of the final steps toward shoring up the personal protective equipment that is kept for safekeeping in the stockpile after it was totally depleted just weeks into the pandemic. Equipment had not been regularly restocked for years leading up to the pandemic. The new gowns are one of many purchases the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response has made in recent years to restock the barren coffers, assistant secretary Dawn O’Connell said.