Just in time manufacturing is a recipe for disaster when you allow a single nation to do the lion's share of everyone's manufacturing, and that nation is the first to shut down.<p>A decentralized manufacturing system with distribution through regional warehouses was more resilient, if less cost effective.<p>Some states, California and New York among them, did create their own local stockpiles of ventilators and PPE after the bird and swine flu scares, but did away with them in the fiscal crunch after the financial meltdown.<p><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/california-once-had-mobile-hospitals-and-a-ventilator-stockpile-but-it-dismantled-them/ar-BB11O8Gs" rel="nofollow">https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/california-once-had-mobile...</a><p><a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/how-new-york-city-emergency-ventilator-stockpile-ended-up-on-the-auction-block" rel="nofollow">https://www.propublica.org/article/how-new-york-city-emergen...</a>
There is a difficult follow up to this. When the dust settles months from now and some 40% of the country becomes convinced none of these problems ever happened, how shall we prevent this or other fiascos next time?
"The news agency found that <i>not a single shipment of medical-grade N95 masks arrived at U.S. ports during the month of March</i>... Federal agencies waited until mid-March to begin placing bulk orders for the urgently needed supplies... The first large U.S. government order ... was not placed until March 21st—the same day that Ries got his first phone call about the Kushner effort. The order... did not even require the supplies to be delivered until the end of April" (emphasis mine, edited for length)<p>Though the article goes into more detail to the question that the title asks, I thought this part was pertinent.<p>How did we end up with nurses in garbage PPE? The same way they still are in them. The problems that existed a month ago still exist today and are likely to continue to exist.
There's a tremendous amount of bureaucratic infighting and cluelessness in many countries just now (I'm in the UK). There have been debates for many years about streamlining the chain of command and responsibility in the USA; just think about the post-9/11 debates. I understand that the federal structure makes some things hard but it would seem to me that a proper central authority to manage a crisis like this would be very useful - but isn't this what FEMA is for? After the dust settles, some heads need to be bashed together.
There's a terrific debate to be had about the role of the federal government in a national emergency. Is it the air support for state led initiatives, or should it be more of a quarterback coordinating action across all state lines?
There would have been more substantial stockpiles of all essentials and safety equipment if price 'gouging' wasn't illegal.<p>When you restrict prices to below a arbitrary level of any good, you get shortages during those periods when the price should be above that level.