US cities have acute shortages of masks, test kits, ventilators

Nearly 90 per cent of US mayors who responded to a national survey on coronavirus preparedness said they lack sufficient test kits, face masks and other protective equipment for their emergency responders and medical workers, while 85 per cent said they do not have enough ventilators for their hospitals.

The US Conference of Mayors survey, published yesterday, includes data from 213 US cities in 41 states and Puerto Rico, representing a combined population of 42 million. It says the shortages of essential items and equipment they are facing have ‘‘reached crisis proportions’’.

‘‘This is a life-threatening crisis that will continue unless the federal government does everything in its power to help us,’’ the report says.

The survey found little variation between large and small cities. Nearly two-thirds said they had not received any help from their states.

The cities reported a need for a total of 28.5 million face masks, 24.4 million items of personal protective equipment such as gowns and gloves, 7.9 million test kits and 139,000 ventilators.

Bryan K Barnett, the Republican

mayor of Rochester Hills, Michigan and president of the conference, said he drove around his city, which has a population of about 75,000, collecting masks from construction sites to deliver to fire stations. Michigan has the fifth-largest number of coronavirus cases in the nation, and his community has just a 14-day supply of masks.

Louisville Mayor and conference vice-president Greg Fischer, a Democrat, said his city purchased about 250,000 masks on the private market. Some wholesale distributors had raised prices from US 97 cents to US$5.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has asked for 30,000 additional ventilators, but US President Donald Trump said yesterday that would be too many.